SasuSaku CherryBlackness
by Laurii94
Summary: Sakura moves into Konoha and meets Sasuke, the most arrogant jerk she's ever known. It seems as though he just wont leave her alone, but before she can give him a chance, she finds he has a very dark, dangerous secret. NaruHina, GaaOCC, InoKiba, GaaSaku
1. Chapter 1

**~ Cherry Blackness - - Chapter One - Halloween Roses ~**

_~ Sakura's POV ~_

I wouldn't say I'm the sort of worst teenage bitches who has nothing else to do all day but whining, and I do love my mother above anything else, I really do, but sometimes, I just don't understand her. It just seemed like I'd been blessed with the most naïve adult ever found as a mother. But that didn't necessarily mean that she was easily deceived.

Downheartedly, I stared at my copy of _Breaking Dawn_, as if I'd expected some support from it. None came. "Please, mum. We've been here barely a week, no one expects you to throw a party. Especially not at Halloween. Why don't we just wait for Christmas?"

My mother looked at me slightly critically. "Sakura, we've been here for two weeks, almost three", she replied. I just rolled my eyes. "They're friends of mine, I'm not gonna cancel this now, honey."

So what if even I could tell it would be kind of weird if she called the whole event off three hours before. "But then _please_ keep me out of it, okay?", I pleaded. "I'll stay in my room and be really quiet, but I don't wanna hang around with your colleagues, mum." Yeah, what an exiting Halloween night, alone in my room. But it was better than having to chitchat with her new friends, and after all I didn't know a soul around here yet anyway, so I probably didn't miss anything.

She returned to cutting the pumpkin into small pieces which she heaved into the pot next to her, and gave me an amused look over the table. "Don't be silly, sweetheart, you're not gonna sit around alone in your room when there's a party."

"Yeah, well, it's not a party, it's a Halloween Dinner", I replied dryly. "_Your_ Halloween Dinner. With _your_ friends that I wanna have nothing to do with."

"Well, let's then just say that I asked my dear colleagues to bring their kids", she suggested and smiled down at her pumpkin. My heart sank even deeper. Oh joy, my mother's friends' kids. I do believe my kind of decent evening just threw itself down a cliff. Why on earth would she believe that I needed a welcoming committee to do well with making friends at school? "Some of them might even be in some of your classes on Monday."

Okay, I did know she only meant well. But she was missing the point fatally. "Oh mum", I sighed. "I didn't … I don't wanna meet them _now_, Monday will do just as fine." Yeah, Monday … Then I'd be the new girl again. I just couldn't wait.

"Honey." She wiped her hands off on her apron - lightening pink with the text "The best Mum in the World", that I'd given her for Christmas two years ago - and took mine on the table. "I know you've been going through a tough time lately, with all this moving around, and I'm sorry, but …"

"Oh no, mum", I interrupted her quickly. "It's alright, I'm fine, I promise. I'm just whining. I'm a teenager, I'm supposed to be like this, remember?" I squeezed her hand and made myself smile as reassuring as I could manage. She still looked worried, and I got up to give her a kiss. "And it's not your fault, so don't worry. I'm perfectly fine. I'm gonna take a shower, okay?"

She smiled softly, the honey-colored eyes filling up with an amazing warmth. "Okay. Good girl." She softly kissed my forehead. "And go pick up the stuff on your floor too, please." I grabbed my book, ditched my teacup in the sink and went to my room to put the heaps of CD:s, DVD:s, books and clothes into their right places before I made my way to the bathroom. She did let me shower in peace, which made me think about starting to forgive her.

As I was rubbing fruity smelling shampoo into my strands, I heard her knocking on the door over the rushing sound of the streaming water. Frowning against a bright blue fish on the shower curtain, I begged it was nothing too annoying. "What?", I asked loudly, trying to sound as nice as possible.

"I'm hanging some clothes on the door knob", she replied. "I'd love for you to wear them tonight, they'll match the decorations perfectly."

Match the _what_? The decorations? The very orange Halloween decorations? Oh great. "Okay", I just called, sort of curtly. More worried than I wanted to admit, I hurried to wash the last shampoo out of my strands and wrap myself into a towel and then peek out the to grab the bag that was hanging on the knob. It wasn't just the fact that I hated orange from the bottom of my heart, but also it would look bloodcurdlingly horrible against my pink hair. As I unfolded the, thanks god, blackish fabric in the bag I had to admit that I was almost joyfully surprised. It was a dark grey and black checkered, plaited skirt, and a black shirt.

I quickly dried up, grabbed a tank top, underwear and a pair of black knee stockings in my room and dressed before I returned to the bathroom to do my make up. I carefully shaded my eyelids blackly, added some light lip-gloss and then found a couple of silvery bracelets and matching necklace with some small crosses, heart-eyed skulls and even bats attached to it.

My mum was busied with arranging red, orange and black candles on the table as I joined her in the pretty small dining room, which was separated from the kitchen with its kitchen island by a sort of bar counter. She had draped a big black sheet over the table and placed two big, grinning pumpkins on it, and had alternated between orange and black serviettes. On the counter as well as on the cupboard in the corner, the cupboard in the hallway and in some of the shelves in the living room there were more of the candles. It did look pretty cool, I had to admit.

She smiled as she saw me. "Did you like it? You look gorgeous."

"Yeah, I did", I smiled back. "But when did you buy this? You shouldn't have." After this last move, we were even more far away from any kind of financial beauty than ever. Not that we were poor, really, but I was going to get myself a job quickly, even if she'd of course never ask me to.

"I found it yesterday, it was on sale", she replied, which did calm me a little.

"Okay, thanks", I nodded. She placed a big vase with black and red roses on the middle of the table and then looked expectantly at me. I had to smile. "It's perfect, mum."

"Really? I didn't overdo it?" I shook my head pointedly. "Very well then, I'm gonna jump into the shower. In the kitchen there's a plate with sandwiches, could you be so wonderful and do some more of those?"

"Sure." She hurried away and I had to laugh quietly as I saw the sandwiches. She'd cut out ghosts in the cheese, cats and bats of cucumber shell and pumpkins of carrot. I worked quickly. I had counted to at least twelve plates, and then there probably were those kids too, and in spite of everything I wouldn't want my mother's evening to end up poorly in any way at all. As she returned, I had to smile again. She had stuck up the blond strand elegantly and was dressed in quite flattering black dress. My mother was younger than any other mothers of friends of mine, and she'd been just 18 as she gave birth to me. I often wondered if that had anything to do with the kind of friendship-alike relation we had.

"You look stunning, mum", I said.

She smiled beamingly. "Well, you don't look so bad yourself", she winked. "Okay, they'll be here any minute, go light the candles, would you?" I nodded, hiding my regretful nervousness, and grabbed the lighter from the counter. I'd no more than just let die flame die away after the last candle in the hallway, as the doorbell rang.

Well, here we go now. The devil's before the door. "Mum!", I squeaked, "they're here."

"Coming!" The bell droned again. I heard her shuffle around in the kitchen.

"Mum! I am _not_ opening!"

More shuffle. "Breathe, I'm right here", she then said and hurried to my side. "Okay, ready?"

No way. She smiled and opened the door. I'd done this before, I knew how to smile as sweetly and politely as possible. That didn't mean I liked it. I shoved the displeased grunting within me away and concentrated on my mother introducing the new faces to me.

Mrs and Mr Yamanaka were first in. She was wrapped up in a furry coat that made me want to place her mingling at an exclusive gala rather than nursing bloody wounds side by side with my mother in the hospital. They were both blonde and blue eyed, and did look good together, greeting my mother with warm smiles rather than arrogant faces as I almost expected them to. Next in was a brown-haired woman with almost squirrel-alike brown eyes and a small girl hiding behind her coat and peeking up at me beneath equally nut-brown bangs. Thinking worriedly about my mother's words about her colleagues' kids, I heard her calling them Shime Inuzuka and Hana.

Before the four of them even had gotten out of their coats, the next two couples entered our hallway. The first couple were both black haired, and seemed to be pretty quiet characters to me. The woman was pale and had a mild face with pretty fair eyes. Her husband looked sort of severe and strict, but he smiled politely as he greeted my mother, and she introduced them as Mr and Mrs Hyuuga. After them followed Mr Nara, a man with a somehow thoughtful look in contrast to his spiky ponytail, and his wife, slightly tanned and with thick, black-brownish locks.

The couple and their friend after them were younger and didn't quite seem to fit into the rest of the group. Kakashi Hatake had, for a start, a silvery colored, spiky mane of hair and wore a brightly red tie to his black shirt and blue jeans. Asuma Sarutobi, grinning and in his twenties and with a short ponytail and brownish beard, had topped that with the small ghosts and grinning pumpkins on his tie, which perfectly matched the similarly designed scarf of his girlfriend, Kurenai Yuhi, a very pretty woman with envy-awakening thick, dark hair and big eyes. Briefly I wondered exactly whom of those were working at the hospital, because I had a hard time imagining any of them in those bluish nurse-shirts.

As the last group entered through the door, however, I had a hard time hiding my deep disbelief. Mr and Mrs Uchiha made me quickly taking back any thought I'd had about the obviously wealthy Yamanakas, about them so not belonging either in our hallway nor at the hospital. Mrs Uchihas face beneath the raven black hair was sort of mild and even nice, though, but there was a heavy layer of richness and arrogance lingering over them like a scent - and almost as touchable as a scent would have been. Mr Uchiha on the other hand had nothing that even tried to dispute against the arrogant edginess; his face was set and strict and there were grey sprinkles in his once coal black hair. All in all he somehow made me picture him as an honor-obsessed general of the Navy or something like that.

With them arrived also Mrs Amaki and her daughter Akane. They were both blonde, the about six-year-old slightly more leaning to the brownish, and her mother had long side bangs that almost shockingly youthfully hang before her right eye. And as quiet and drawn back as the Uchihas, as open and cheerful did she seem to me, and confusedly I watched her chat ruefully with them, but very scarcely greeting the other adults. What was this? The Romeo and Juliet-family fight awaken to life? It was almost creepy to watch the two groups chatting cheerfully amongst each other and at the same barely looking across the all but touchable wall between their fronts. I mean, these were highly educated adults, and if that wall was even too thick for empty pleasantries, then it had to be some sort of serious.

I'd very much liked to ask my mother if she was blind or if she just thought it was interesting to invite a family-feud into our, suddenly very fragile seeming, apartment, but I managed to keep it to myself. "Was that all?", I just hissed as I grabbed my mother.

She looked amused. "Yeah, honey, I know it's a lot."

"I'm fine", I replied. Yeah, if nobody ends up with our kitchen-knife in their throat tonight, then I'm definitely all fine. "But, uhm, you are aware of that these, Akane and Hana, or whatever their names are, most probably wont be in my class, right?"

"Oh, and Tsunade, the kids should be on their way, I talked to Ino just before we left", Mrs Yamanakas sort of pleasant voice drifted to us over the calmly chatting that now filled the much too small hallway, as if she'd heard us talking, which I hardly doubted.

"There you go", my mother concluded beamingly.

Asuma chuckled next to me. "You invited the kids, Tsunade? Hope you don't got any valuable furniture then", he said amusedly and scratched his beard while winking slightly.

I stared at him, obviously much more touched by his words than my mother, who just laughed warmly. "Don't worry, honey", she said to me. "Here, why don't you put these in a vase while you're waiting?" She handed me the two bouquets of red, orange-alike and blackish flowers, one with roses and one with tulips, wrapped in silky black and red paper. As far as I could recall, she'd received them as a thanks-for-the-invite-gift from Mrs Inuzuka and the Uchihas.

Murmuring something, I stomped into the kitchen, dug out a vase from under the sink and started to put the flowers into it. With almost ridiculous much care, I arranged them and then wrapped the thin, rustling paper around it before placing it on the table in the living room, all while I watched the group of adults - or rather the two groups - slowly drifting into the dining room, admiring my mother's decorations and the fact that it was so oblivious that we'd moved here just two weeks ago; it didn't look untidy or chaotic at all, did it?

The same moment as I let go of the vase in the living room, the doorbell rang again, and my mother called; "Sakura, honey, go get the door, would you?" I took a deep breath, threw a brief look at my reflection in the mirror in the hallway, and reached out for the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**~ Cherry Blackness - - Chapter Two - First Glance ~**

_~ Sakura's POV ~_

A brightly smiling girl stood in front of me, with bluish eyes, long, fair blond hair and long side-bangs almost covering her right eye. "Hi, uhm, Haruno's?", she asked.

"I'm … well, yeah, I'm Sakura", I managed to put together.

She laughed. "Great. Oi, guys, _guys_! Found it!"

A male voice echoed down the stairs. Uhm, down? They weren't living up there, were they? "Really? Awesome. Oi, jerk, c'mon, move it."

"Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on, dude." Two boys and a girl emerged down the stairs to catch up with the blonde. They might just have been brothers; the same spiky, pretty untidy, but in a kind of cool way, hair and even similar bright grins. The first one was brown-hairy though, and the other sandy blond with intense blue eyes. The brown-hairy wore a dark hoodie with a grinning skull on it and once-blue jeans that almost were more holes and rips than fabric, while the black pants of the blonde only were ripped up over the knees, and he wore a brightly orange fabric-jacket.

The girl had a very nice, petite face, with fair blue eyes and long, black, shining hair with forehead-cut bang. She wore a very cute, black dress with plaited skirt under a blackish hoodie and around her neck hang some silvery necklaces.

Behind them there were two more boys, next to one couple and followed by another. The two boys were both pretty tall, the one brown-haired and the other with deeply red strands. The redhead's eyes were marked with coal black shadows and from the chest of his jumper, there was a big puppet-smiley grinning emptily. The girl next to them was blonde and pretty tall as well, with two thick and pretty short ponytails, and hand-in-hand with her walked a dark boy with a ponytail as well, about as spiky as Mr Nara's.

The last couple were both black haired, the boy with strands that, surprisingly reached beneath his shoulders and fair eyes that made me silently wonder if the Hyuugas had three children here tonight. The girl next to him had a very mild face and brown reindeer-alike eyes, her black hair gathered in two knots on her head.

Quickly I let my gaze fly over the gathering. Ripped pants hanging pretty low, chains, boots and slightly dying-looking sneakers. There were quite obviously eleven backstreet-skaters standing before my door. Not that I had anything against the style or the people wearing it in general, not at all. I'd even belonged to a similar group before we moved from home. Oh well, they didn't look dangerous - well, the most of them - and in spite of everything, my mother wasn't stupid, she must have known what she was up to as she asked her dear colleagues to bring their kids. I hoped, at least.

The blonde in front of me was still smiling brightly. "Hi", she answered my somewhat stuttered greeting. "I'm Ino, Ino Yamanaka." Yamanaka? The rich, fine couple had a daughter in a skater-gang?

I smiled politely. "Why don't you all get in inside, and we'll finish the introductions there." I stepped aside to let them all into the hallway, which again seemed considerably small.

"Okay, so, nice to meet you, Sakura", Ino smiled while hanging away her coat. "Anyway, this is Kiba Inuzuka" - she pointed at the first one of the brown-hairy, who grinned -, "Naruto Uzumaki" - the blonde orange one -, "Hinata Hyuuga" - the pallid black-haired girl -, "That over there is Tenten Yamanaka and Neji Hyuuga" - she nodded towards the girl with the knots and the long-haired dark boy next to her -, "and that's Shikamaru Nara and Temari Sabakuno" -, the one with the ponytail and his blond girlfriend smiled towards me -, "and the two over there are brothers, Gaara and Kankuro. She's oldest, Gaara is youngest."

They all smiled and waved in reply to my mumbled greetings. Biting my lip, I felt half of the names already slipping out of my mind. Oh brother, this was going to be fun. Tentatively, I started to direct the cheerfully chatting array into the living room.

Ino closed up next to me, smiling nicely. "So, how long have you lived here, anyway?"

"About three weeks", I replied, smiling slightly back.

"But you haven't started school yet, have you?"

"Uhm, no", I admitted. "We weren't supposed to come here until one week ago, so I'll start on Monday."

She smiled. "In Konoha West High?" I nodded. "Oh but that's great, we'll probably have a lot of classes together", she beamed. "Don't worry, we'll take care of you", she added grinning, as I probably looked more or less terrified. I just mumbled agreeing and fled to my mother in the kitchen.

"Hi, dear", she smiled. "So, they don't bite, do they?"

"I-" the doorbell efficiently cut off the sharp reply laying ready on my tongue, and I snapped my mouth shut, giving my mother an as pointed look as possible.

"Go get it, would you?", she asked, obviously busied by the salad. I just mumbled again, turned and dragged myself to the door. As I reached for the knob, I saw Ino leaning against the doorframe to the living room behind me, seeming to watch me with a huge amount of interest. Suddenly I remembered the creepy wall between the two groups of adults, and my heart heavily removed itself to somewhere deep down in my stomach. I breathed deeply again, and opened the door.

A pretty short girl with long, coal black hair and skillfully shaded, big eyes smiled at me, next to a slender but still well-built boy, with shaded eyes as well, and thick, blond hair that reached halfway down to his elbows. Next to them, there was another couple; a pretty tall guy, with a long, black ponytail, blackish eyes, and a pale but almost surprisingly good-looking face, and by his side a shorter girl with bluish eyes under a thick, black line of eyeliner and short, deeply blue strands. Beside them was a slender guy with deeply wine-red strands and a matching voodoo-doll print on the front of his black hoodie, and another black-haired boy. He was shorter than the other, but the half-long strands were just as raven-dark and eyes just as blackish.

Almost ridiculously, I felt my eyes caught by his face. On the one hand, he was almost unnaturally good-looking, with defined lines, sharp nose and chin and full lips. On the other hand, there was a thick layer of heart-deep, cold arrogance and some kind of distaste that made me almost step back away from him. There was almost some kind of hatred in his eyes, something untouchable that kind of freaked me out. Looking at his must-be older brother, there was the same wall behind his eyes, keeping the unworthy world at a safe distance; but it was much more arrogance and contempt in the elder's face. In the younger's, it seemed more like pure, sharp hate and cold annoyance.

"It's, uhm, Sakura Haruno, right?", the black-haired girl smiled carefully and called me back down to earth.

"Yeah, nice to meet you", I murmured, almost starting to hope that they might have reached the wrong place and were about to turn around and disappear.

"I'm Mitsukai", she replied smilingly. "Deidara Amaki, Itachi and Sasuke Uchiha, Konan and Sasori." She pointed first at the blonde at her side, then the oldest of the dark-hairy, the youngest, the blue-hairy girl and then the redhead.

I nodded smilingly. "Come on in", I offered. They moved past me, and the youngest Uchiha got last in line. As he walked past me, holding the door open for them, our eyes met. With something itching within me, I got the feeling that he was somehow shaping me up, like a bully determining his next prey, though it wasn't exactly as pointedly hostile. More like someone who checks out an opponent. Wow, this was just getting weirder and weirder.

As I closed the door, I saw Ino standing leaning against the door frame to the living room, where the rest of her chattering gang were filling up the sofa. She was smiling at the newcomers, but her earlier openly, cheerfully face was now slightly back drawn. I remembered the cold wall between the two adult's groups, and within seconds, I'd managed to build up a scene in my mind, of the two backstreet-gangs fighting bloodily in our living room. Behind Ino, most of her mates seemed to be watching her and the new group of teenagers, as if they were worried she was going to be torn apart on the spot by them. Well, this was just getting creepier and creepier by the minute.

The black-haired girl, Mitsukai, looked at Ino, sort of tentatively, and in the same measuring way as the youngest of the Uchiha-brothers had looked at me minutes before. "Well, there you go, told you you look better with your hair loose like that, didn't I?", she then smiled.

Ino grinned back. "Yeah, well, gotta be right sometimes you too, right?", she replied.

Basically, it was like someone had turned down the mere air pressure in the entire apartment; I could even swear I saw the vine-red-haired one, Sasori, and Mitsukai's boyfriend exchange an utterly relieved grin. Okay, so I might be pretty good with weird, but this was so beyond my reach. And to be honest, I didn't wanna know. If they were having some territory-fight or just following dumb traditions, by all means, let them; as long as they stayed put while in my mothers apartment. Mumbling, I advised Mitsukai to make themselves comfortable in the living room before I again fled to mum in the kitchen.

Somehow I kept myself from asking my mother whether or not she knew that she'd invited two rivaling skater-gangs into her home. Instead I just took the plate with sandwiches from her, smiling politely and returned to the group in the living room. They had spread themselves in the room, sort of awkwardly; part of Ino's gang ha occupied the small, worn sofa, leaving the two armchairs to Mitsukai's people, while almost half of the group were standing up, chatting away with one another.

My smile felt so tense it could just as well have ended up in a truly horrifying grimace as I placed the plate on the table and relieved saw that my mother just entered the room with a bowl of some kind of poisonous-looking liquid I'd helped her mix earlier today. Despite the fact that I was grateful of having something to do, I was realizing I must be acting like some nervous housewife or waitress or something, carrying around food like this.

At the drink bowl, Ino and Hinata caught me up and involved me in a slightly uneven conversation. So, I didn't have problems with people. Really. People were all fine. Only new people were just … crap. It's something with the way they all are so horribly curious about you and practically all eyes somehow seemed glued to that new, unknown, interesting face of yours.

But, granted, both Ino and Hinata were doing pretty well. After having informed themselves briefly about where I was from and why we'd moved here, and even more scarcely about my taste of music and films, we got stuck in a discussion about some current movies coming into theatres. It turned out we all were determined to watch _Breaking Dawn part I_ in the fall, but Ino was a bit critical to _The Three Musketeers_. Well, thanks high heaven. Hinata's glass was soon empty and I smilingly offered her to refill.

I did regret my nice gesture as soon as I turned around, though. The youngest Uchiha and the redhead of Mitsukai's gang, Sasori, stood very close to the bowl. Sasuke's black eyes seemed to study me as I handled the glasses, making a warm chill run down my spine. Seriously, people don't look that good. They just don't.

"Nicely done with the decorations", Sasori calmly pointed out.

"Yeah, mum's always had a thing for stuff like that", I smiled slightly. I could have imagined the small, sort of hard "hn" that Sasuke emitted as I turned to return to the girls. Quickly I looked back at him, but he was now faced the other way. A slight warmth crept up my cheeks.


	3. Chapter 3

**~ Cherry Blackness - - Chapter Three - Vulnerable ~**

_~ Mitsukai's POV ~_

The night was practically breathing Halloween as I stepped out the door of the small restaurant. Konan stood leaned against the wall a few meters away and came towards me.

"Tell me again where we're going?", she asked as we started walking down the curb.

"94th, 41E", I replied and accepted the cigarette she offered me with a shrug.

"And why? The girl's probably gonna hang around with the kids down there anyway."

"Yeah, I know. Just being nice." Shouts from behind made us turn, and we stopped to wait in Itachi, Sasuke, Sasori and Deidara. The blonde pulled me into a firm, warm hug and I tilted my head up to give him a kiss.

"Where are we going, hm?", he asked then, in the same skeptical tone as Konan, who now was tugged neatly into Itachi's embrace.

"We're gonna be a little nice to the new kid", I replied dryly and slipped a hand into Deidara's jeans-pocket. "You're all gonna be very nice tonight", I added sharper and gave Sasori a glance.

It wasn't like he was that keen of fighting, but when it came to these people, he was, well, sort of edgy. Okay, so I knew this was a bad idea. But it wasn't mine either; Deidara's mother was the one who'd asked us to show up - apparently the girl's mother was a colleague of hers. I wasn't going to admit that I really just wanted, needed, the opportunity to … check them out. I just couldn't admit that, not even to myself. And I needed them to see me with my people, happy and secure without them. Of course I saw them in school, and they saw me just the same. But this felt different. And to be with them, just one evening, even though I of course couldn't be _with_ them. I needed that, in a sick, masochistic way.

"Mitsukai, you alright?"

I looked up at Sasori. "Sure. Why?", I asked as unaffected as I possibly could manage.

If I missed them? Hell yeah. But I couldn't tell anybody, could I? And in any way, it didn't matter. It was far too late now. And it was my own fault, so I was just going to have to deal with it.

"You know you'll have to talk to Yamanaka, right?" Sasori looked at me again with a pulled-up eyebrow. Of course he wanted me to chicken out and turn to run the other direction.

"Yeah, I know", I replied coolly. "Don't worry."

We turned around another corner and were met by a small group, containing a ghost, two small witches and a brightly grinning Frankenstein's monster. They stopped, expectantly, and one witch cheerfully stuck her small basket underneath Sasuke's nose.

"Trick or treat?", she squeaked.

The raven-haired boy raised one eyebrow. "Trick", he dryly stated.

The girl looked so deeply puzzled that I had to laugh. "He means we don't have anything with us", I quickly cut in. "Sorry."

As the small group drifted off, a grimly spine-chilling thought hit me. If those kids, dressed up as the monsters of the night, knew they'd just chatted with a group of … well, whatever. Sort of ironic, though. And creepy, even though I'd of course never be able to admit that.

The street sign around the next corner efficiently cut of the dark chain of thoughts. 94th Night Lane. "Here it is, guys", I stated the obvious, trying to keep my voice from rising high. Night Lane? Hello? I know it's Halloween alright, but why don't we just try to keep the irony at a more decent level, okay?

I slid my hand into Deidara's as we walked up the stairs, but didn't want to meet his azure-blue gaze. Grimly, I noticed the others making sure I was closest to the door as we finally arrived at E. As discretely as possible, I pulled a deep breath and rung the bell.

The girl who opened the door was very pretty, in a neat, petite way, with pink, elbow-length strands and side-bangs and emerald-colored eyes.

"It's", I briefly rummaged around in my memory to recall her name, "Sakura Haruno, right?", I smiled.

She seemed to study the lot of us, and then nodded with a smile. "Nice to meet you", she replied.

"I'm Mitsukai", I continued, almost eager to get over with the formalities. "Deidara Amaki, Itachi and Sasuke Uchiha, Konan and Sasori", I added and waved a bit vaguely at the others.

She nodded again, smiling, and then stepped aside to let us into the quite small apartment. I barely had time to notice the number of candles on the cupboard next to me before I stopped, and suddenly wished I could just turn around and run back home. A slender blonde was leaning against the doorframe right in front of me, the whitish blond strands like a veil around her and seeming to study me.

I swallowed and pressed forth a smile. Well, hell, here we go. "There you go", I said as cheerfully as I managed to, "I told you, you do look better with your hair loose like that, didn't I?"

At least, _she_ seemed to relax; I was far from. This was such a bad idea. "Yeah, well, gotta be right sometimes you too, right?", she smiled. I managed to make myself grin, suddenly filled with an urge to get out of there the very same second.

I started to follow Deidara through the small apartment, but was efficiently stopped by Hinata Hyuuga, who greeted me with a small half-hug. Slightly shell-shocked, I suddenly found myself in the middle of a row of greetings with the whole group. Well, hell, this was just plain weird.

As I released myself from the sort-of-brotherly handshake-hug with Neji, it clicked. Like fallen from the skies, I suddenly stood face-to-face with Gaara. I quickly let my gaze run across his face, and the pale-green eyes shortly met mine. He hadn't changed at all. And I realized that though we had several classes together, I hadn't really looked at him for months. Feeling oddly numb, I murmured a small "Hi", and could have cried in relief that my voice didn't sound funny in any way. Swiftly, I stepped forward and into his half-hug.

Then I stepped back and smiled a bit up at him. "You look good", I emitted, and could have kicked myself the very same moment. Okay, yes, he did; he always did. But that's just nothing you say to Gaara. Especially not if you're me.

He gave a crooked smile. "You too."

I murmured something vague, suddenly very aware the others were watching us with deep interest. Quickly I hushed after Deidara to the room next, were the parents were sitting. I felt awful. During the short amount of time we'd hugged, there had been this feeling in me. For a short moment, all I'd wanted was for him to pull me really, really, really close and never let me go. I mean, _come on_! I _had_ a boyfriend. The thing with me and Gaara was past, way past. And it was gonna stay right back there; this crap was surely nothing I needed right now.

Deidara's mother pulled me into a tight hug as I reached them. "Well, don't you look cheerful", she said critically with her usual straight-forwardness as she pulled back to give me a good look.

Yeah, well, the thing with Ai Amaki that she was not only my boyfriend's mother; on paper she was mine too. Well, at the moment at least. I'd been in foster care since my aunt died four years ago, but before I came to the Amaki's last year, I'd never stayed with one family more than six months. Of course I moved out as soon as the thing with me and Deidara got serious - but, yeah, it sure as hell was some good gossip for a while. Oh and, sure, there was the small issue of Sasori having the title of Deidara's foster-brother too. Yeah, small freaky family-warning there.

"I, uhm, lot of homework", I stated and smilingly heaved my on-paper-little-sister up in my arms, with one half ear listening to the chirping sound of her never-ending, overly cheerful chatter.

Ai smiled and promptly shoved a sandwich into her daughter's mouth in a half-hearted attempt to briefly silence her. "Yeah, well don't worry, if Dei made it in, you're on safe grounds, right?", she grinned a bit mockingly towards Deidara, who was busied with a conversation with Itachi and a sandwich.

"I … - wait, what?", I asked, totally clueless. Made it in where?

"The acceptances, hon", she just smiled softly. A bit as if she was dealing with some of her Alzheimer's patients who couldn't remember their own name. Point being, I even had quite a good memory. And hell, your boyfriend's acceptance to college isn't something you easily miss, is it? Or well, that is if he bothered to tell you.

I quickly smiled back. "Yeah, of course, great isn't it?" While mumbling something about getting a sandwich, I dumped Akane in her lap and started walking towards the living room. Deidara swiftly caught me up as I passed him and Itachi in the doorframe. Giving a small smile, I let him hold me, keeping my irritation behind the façade. It wasn't really a time to bring it up. Yeah, I probably should give him a pass. I mean, no one knew better than I that Deidara was a pretty messed up kid, and it wasn't exactly his fault, either. Maybe he'd been meaning to tell me. Yeah, I'd keep it down for a while.

Feeling watched, I looked up, and was about to jump as I met the pallid green eyes of Gaara. I couldn't read the gaze, and after a heartbeat, he looked away. He had probably just been looking around. People do that sometimes, don't they?

"You okay?", Itachi broke off my edgy thoughts. I looked up at him, feeling an odd, dry sort of feeling spread inside.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Only your buddy isn't. Oh no, senile or something like that. "Going for a drink", I announced to Deidara and slipped out of his loose embrace.

Sasori and Sasuke stood next to the drink-bowl - and talked about soccer, I soon realized. Grumpily, I sipped at the greenish, sweet liquid and listened. I really, really wanted to go home. Like, now.

"Hey, gals, I'm bored", Naruto complained as he and Kiba broke of their conversation with Kankuro and joined Ino and Hinata who were talking to Sakura.

"Yeah, c'mon, Ino, can't you pull one of those question-games you used to?", Kiba asked.

Oh dude. I bit the ridge of my glass to keep from grinning. Ino looked like she'd swallowed something sour. "Kiba, honey, that, uhm, wasn't me", she said carefully and cut a very snide glance to me. I allowed myself a very, very silent giggle down into the depths of my drink while Sasori disappeared to join Itachi and Deidara.

Sasuke raised one eyebrow. "You have a really sick sense of humor", he muttered.

I kept carefully hiding my amusement behind my glass. "I know", I admitted. "Can't help it."

He just shook his head and filled his glass up. "What?", I hissed quietly. "I can't help that Inuzuka has two verbal left feet. And don't tell me I don't have the right to be amused." He just emitted a dry "Hn".

"Well, but, you know how to set it up, though?", Hinata swiftly smothered over Kiba's miss.

Feeling down again, I watched Ino and Hinata drag away Sakura to the kitchen, where Tenten soon joined them as they giggling busied themselves with writing questions. Giggling. With a girl they'd known for less than two hours. Sort of like they had with me one year ago. Of course the scenery had looked a bit different then.

"How come your dad's here?" I asked Sasuke quietly to make myself break off the depressive thoughts.

He didn't look at me, just shrugged. "Mum wanted to stay home", he then said, just as quietly. "Since he isn't home that often."

I nodded. Well, "that often" was like the understatement of the year, but I wasn't gonna rub the wound. "But he didn't want to?"

Sasuke gave a very grim, cold smirk and shook his head. "Said it was impolite." I rolled my eyes to show my support, but didn't say anything more.

"Okay, uhm, guys, attention, please", Ino giggled from the door. "We're gonna play a little, uhm, game."

Sasuke gave me a glance. I grinned grimly. "Fun", I murmured dryly. I then made Ino a major favor and gestured to Itachi, Sasori and Deidara to play along. Not that she was about to realize that.

As we all sat down around the small table, I gave in and let Deidara pull me down in his lap. He softly, briefly kissed my neck, which did make me smile a bit. But as I looked up again, those pale green eyes met mine again, just for one heartbeat. Feeling cold inside, I couldn't do anything about the smile sort of dripping off my face, like raindrops off a window.

Trying to look as normal as possible, I looked at Ino. Grimly, I noticed, she kept throwing almost panicking glances at both Sasuke and me, and actually looked a bit like you might imagine someone who faces the gallows. "Okay, so", she started, a bit high-pitched. "It goes like, uhm, this …"

Oh, whatever. "… You pick a question, and describe the person it refers to, without mentioning things like looks or where in the room she or he is currently sitting", I helped her out. Almost every one in the room stared at me like I'd just announced the planet earth is flat as a pancake. That including Sakura. How on earth did she get in on the game that quick? Gaara, on the other hand looked almost amused. Even behind the cool façade of Sasuke's pretty features, there seemed to be some sort of amusement. Seriously?

I looked at Ino, who wordlessly gaped at me, like fallen from the skies. "Or am I wrong?", I asked.

She blinked and mumbled something inaudibly that vaguely ended in a curt "Sure". She emitted a coughing sound, and then went on, "Okay, who's first? Naruto?"

The blonde mildly shrugged his approval and grabbed a piece of paper. I wasn't listening after that. I wasn't exactly out for winning this thing. People would say that this gang-thing we had going on, was ridiculous. It was foolish, and childish, not to speak useless and dangerous. People being teachers, people reading the news-papers about kids who messed up and punched out each others teeth. And now, probably even this new girl, Sakura. One year ago, that was me, too. And maybe they were right, in some cases. But not here. They had no idea what was going on here. How much hurt, and disappointment, and betrayal. And loyalty, and pride. Yeah, I guess, there was a bit too much pride around here. But if you look at it from our point of view, there's really not much choice left. I personally, couldn't think of a way to make it end.

"You okay?" Well, there's more I don't know how to end. Naruto, Kiba, Ino and Tenten had all picked their questions before Mrs Haruno appeared in the doorframe and announced the pumpkin-soup. I gave Deidara a sharp look, maybe too sharp.

"How many more times are you guys gonna ask that tonight?", I breathed hissing. "I'm perfectly fine. Do you all suddenly have a tumor pressing against some emotional caring-center of your brains, or what's wrong with you?"

He rolled the azure-blue eyes. "You don't look perfectly fine, that's all, yeah."

"Really?", I hissed back. "Then how do I look?"

"Pissed", he murmured.

"I-" for some reason I looked up and saw Ino looking away really quickly. Oh, great. I just shook my head. Not now. I didn't feel like letting Ino watch this kind of show right now. "I'm sorry, I'm fine, okay?", I said softer. "Just tired, that's all."

"Sure?" He did look worried, he actually did. Which was sweet. But still …

"Okay, let's keep going", Temari - of all possible people - interrupted me. "Gaara, your turn."

"Yeah", I mumbled towards Deidara as I watched Gaara pick up a piece of paper and read it.

"Okay, this person, is a girl", he began, and I had to hide a small smile as he sent Kankuro a look that efficiently cleaned the ear-splitting grin off the brother's face. "She's smart, not only in class. She cares a lot about others, but doesn't always show it. She doesn't believe in fate or luck …"

"Mitsukai", Sasuke calmly answered. As Gaara flung the paper over to Sasuke, the room was creepily silent. I swallowed. I felt like he'd punched me in the stomach. Actually, like both of them had punched me in the stomach. Hard. Suddenly, there was a heart-deep wish inside of me, to escape Deidara's embrace an run, run until all of this disappeared far behind me. I swallowed. This was just horrible.

The room seemed awfully quiet. The sort of awkward quiet that clings to the air like some sticky, thick glue. After several heavy heartbeats, I heard Ino break the silence, with the question every single one of us wanted answered. "Wh- what did the quest say?"

"Describe the person of the opposite gender who is sitting eight persons right from you", Gaara replied calmly. Ino's world switched back into normal again. Mine didn't shift. Okay, so he didn't choose me, I tried to tell myself. Everything's fine. He did not choose you.

It didn't help. Then I realized they all where all but staring at me, and I pressed forward a small smile. Hell, I so wanted to just get up and leave. "Nice", I gave them the approving comment they were waiting for.


	4. Chapter 4

**~ Cherry Blackness - - Chapter Four - First Steps ~**

_~ Sakura's POV ~_

I'd of course known that I wouldn't be able to sleep the night to Monday, but that didn't make it better. I didn't dare to ask my mother for some sort of miracle-pill I knew she possessed, so I twisted around in my bed, went to the loo once every hour, tried to listen to music and even read two chapters in _Breaking Dawn_ until I gave up at 5:30 AM and cuddled up in the couch with the TV on low volume.

Ino had promised they'd all pick me up at 7:30, so I knew I didn't have to worry about that. But frankly, I was a mess, and I knew it. I knew it was sort of ridiculous and all that, but I just did not want to be the new kid. Everyone was gonna stare at me like I was some panda with two heads at zoo and make up their own story about me. And I'd have to make new friends. Yeah, yeah, I had Ino and Hinata and what's-her-name with the princess Leah-hair-style. Tenten, right.

My mother peeked into the living room at 6:30 and gave me a soft hug. "Don't worry, it'll be fine, sweetie. Go take a shower and I'll make breakfast," she encouraged me mildly. I did so, and then slid into my new school uniform. Granted, it was not that bad. A black, plaited skirt, white shirt and a dark grey cardigan with the school-emblem, and a black tie. I found a pair of chequered knee-stockings and some of my favorite bracelets. Eventually I put on some eyeliner, and smudged the line, and put on my favorite boots for good self-esteem.

I couldn't get the sandwich mum had made me down, so I busied myself with my juice glass until she disappeared into the shower herself and I could dump it in the trash-can. My inner was sort of kinda feeling like it was boiling and at the same time very cold, as I arrived outside. I was myself enough to know it would look weird if I started pacing around the parking lot, so I leaned against the wall and tapped my right heel continuously against the ground, causing an oddly calming, drumming noise.

At 7:29, I heard distant voices and a heartbeat later, the small group turned around the corner. As Ino said "we'll pick ya up", I'd assumed _we_ to be her and Hinata, maybe Tenten and possibly their boyfriends. However, now I realized she'd meant the entire fricking gang. As if I'd needed an audience for my highly probable nervous breakdown. Ino, Hinata and Tenten were walking up front, chatting vividly about whatnot. After them followed Tenten's quiet boyfriend Neji together with about equally chatty Nara-guy, Shikamaru, and last in line where Naruto and Kiba, on - yeah, I know - skateboards.

Ino waved and smiled brightly as I reached them. "Hi there", I muttered.

"Good morning", Hinata gently smiled back. I briefly greeted the others as we started walking again, and let Hinata and Ino close up on each side of me.

"You nervous?", Ino asked.

Hell yeah. "Bit", I shrugged.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine", Tenten smiled. She did have the Leah-hair-style again. I'd seriously have to ask her about that sometime soon. Not that it didn't look good or something, but it sure was a bit weird.

Two blocks later, the Sabakuno-siblings came up the stairs from an underground-subway-station about the same moment as we passed it, and a wave of handshake-greetings ran through our group. Me included, which left me oddly puzzled. They weren't seriously counting me in in this gang-thingy, were they?

I did think about that issue for about exactly three seconds, then it was Gaara's turn to greet me.

See, I have this thing with about three things. One, hands and/or arms. Two, eyes. Three, smell. Or scent or something, because this was way too not-smelly. It wasn't even the normal male-perfume-mixed-with-after-shave-smell. It was sweet in a way, and mixed with a soft hint of smoke, but that didn't make it worse.

"First day, huh?" I fought myself out of the sort of dizziness at the sound of his roughish voice. Yeah, that's the four, voices, by the by.

"Uhmm, yeah", I replied intelligently. He turned to Naruto and left me to think of all the much more chicer ways I could have answered.

"Voliá, here we are", Ino then proclaimed and I stared up at the iron-looking gates, severely stating _Konoha West High School_. Behind them, I caught a glimpse of a pretty concrete-fashioned school yard and a handful of low, bricked buildings. "You ready?"

No, no, thousand times no. "Sure", I murmured.

"That's our girl", Naruto padded me on the back as he passed together with Gaara.

"I mean, what could really happen, right?", I smiled.

Kankuro shrugged. "Well, let's see", he said thoughtfully. "You could get Mrs Hayate as class-teacher, which wont be pretty. And you could get Mr Nanouh in English and get seriously barked at if you cant quote Shakespear on first try. And, if you have Mrs - _ouch_," he ended with emphasis. Temari had smacked him in the back of the head with an utterly heavy-looking book.

"Drop dead, brat", she said irritated. Then she smiled at me. "Don't worry, you'll be fine. Ino and Hinata'll follow you to the reception, right?", she turned to them, who nodded smilingly. I tried hard to look unaffected, while I all but hysterically mentally went through everything I knew about Shakespear.

"Do you know what you've got first?", Hinata asked as she and Ino led me towards one of the buildings, with Kiba behind us.

"Japanese", I mumbled.

"Oh, that's good", Ino smiled, and added - louder as Kiba loudly started complaining about her sanity - "because we have, too."

Inside the reception, an elderly woman looked up from her crosswords and smiled. "What can I do for you?", she asked warmly.

"I'm new", I choked.

"Ah, well, yes", she nodded hearty. "What's your name, honey?"

"Sakura Haruno."

She fished out a bunch of papers from her drawer. "You see, this is a map of the school, though I'm sure your friends will help you out in the beginning", - they nodded smilingly, again -, "your locker is in building C, number 356, I believe. And your time-table should have been sent to you already, right?", I nodded vaguely. "Well, then, if you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask any teacher, they'll help you. But now, hurry so you don't miss your first class", she concluded smilingly.

"Your locker wont be far from ours", Ino, said as we were outside again. "I have 342 and Hinata has 331 …" she kept on rowing up a few numbers and names, which sort of floated in through my right ear and out through the other. Yeah, I know it's biologically or physically or whatever impossible, but it did feel that way.

And I didn't even know why I was so horribly nervous. Yes, new class. Yes, new girl. Yes, everybody stares. Yes, might have to stand in front of the class to present me, myself and I. Yes, might go lost between classes and end up in some restricted basement area at the butt of the world. But also, I'd done that about four, five times before, and even survived without any greater damage. And I had Ino and Hinata and the others, which meant that I partly (well, a very small part, granted) already belonged. And that I had a number of potential guides (yeah, I'd absolutely love to ask Kankuro to show me the way to Physics class), and also that a part of the class already sort of knew me.

My inner kept behaving like a freezing whirlpool gone crazy while I followed Ino and Hinata through two buildings to our lockers (mine did smell a little weird, but I'd help that with a little cloud of my favorite Christina Aguilera-perfume, and above all no living-dead sandwich or a pair of stinking shoes had been left behind), and then into another building again, up the stairs and to the right. D-5, the sign on the open door said, and in the door stood no less than Kakashi Hatake himself.

"Last minute, huh, girls?", he said cheerfully as he let us in before closing the door. While I let Ino all but press me down in the chair next to hers, I tried not to get distracted of how odd his suite without a Halloween-theme looked in contrast to his hair - and all but forgot about the entire class of horribly curious people that I didn't know. As he went to stand at his desk, however, I quickly remembered, and while chewing on my lower lip, I tried to avoid their gazes as they all turned and twisted in their chairs to get a good look at me.

"So, we'll get on with the poetry subject we started last week", Kakashi said (in order to avoid my class-mates undisguised curiosity, I tried to focus on the fact that I'd probably have to start thinking of him as Mr Hatake, which was sort of amusing.) "Oh, and don't worry, Sakura Haruno, I wont make you stand up in front of class; I always hated that when I was younger." He gave me a wink, and I sort of sheepishly smiled at the class, who now all had turned in their seats to get a good look at me at this given opportunity.

"So can someone name a few famous poems?", he then went on without any greater pause. I could have kissed him. Well, not actually, but you get it.

We then got a handout with some poems that we were supposed to understand the meaning of. Unwilling to fail completely during my very first lesson, I started reading the first verse carefully and tried to concentrate.

"Hey, what's 'subliminal' mean?", Kiba hissed from somewhere behind me after not more than ten minutes.

Ino giggled softly, and I told him. From what I could see as I threw a look over my shoulder, he looked deeply impressed. "Good girl", he whispered, which made both Ino and Hinata giggle again.

"Do you get this stuff?", Ino then asked.

"Not at all", I whispered back.

Ino shrugged. "Oh well, we'll ask Tenten later then, she's good with that sort of stuff", she mumbled. She flipped a hair cord** from around her wrist and started combing through her hair with her fingers to gather it in a ponytail. Not for the first time I noticed that the girl had some sort of nice hair; thick and long and shining.

"My mum always says to translate it into modern language", I suggested lowly. Ino and Hinata both murmured in impressed agreement and we all bowed our heads to try it out as Kakashi floated closer, giving us pointed looks. I hadn't noticed until now that except for a handful of guys and girls in the back, we were the only ones talking. He walked over to me then and handed me the Japanese textbook he said we'd be using, and then let me continue trying my new technique out. It did help a little, and I'd finished working with two poems out of the maybe seven that were in the handout, as the dismissal bell finally rang.

Because we weren't basically running for our lives like the others, we ended up being almost the last ones in the room, except two nerdy-looking girls in the front who'd just started picking their stuff together as we passed. Kakashi was rummaging around on his desk, but looked up at us.

"Hey Sakura, doing good?"

I gave a small smile. He had been on a party in my apartment last Friday, after all, so I guessed it wouldn't hurt chatting away with him. Not that I'd ever be able to see him as a formal professor. "Yeah, I'm dealing, I guess."

He smiled back, friendly. "You'll get used to it. Take care of her, girls, will you?", he then said and winked to the others.

"Of course, sir", Ino grinned widely.

He rose an eyebrow. "Well, I'm your class teacher, so I'm supposed to tell you to come to me if you've got problems", he said in a not-too-involved tone. "So, please do that, or they'll kick my butt, 'kay?"

I swallowed a giggle. "'Kay."

"Good girl. Oh, and tell your mother I said hi, wont you?", he said as he returned to the papers and stuff on the desk.

I smiled again. "Sure thing."

"Cute", Ino breathed giggling as we had left the room. But before I'd had the chance to ask her exactly what was so cute, she waved at someone across the hall. "Ten, over here!" She stopped and turned to me. "Hey, what do you have now?"

I didn't even have to check the schedule. "English."

"Oh good, then you're with me", Hinata answered smilingly. Ino agreed and waved before she started making her way towards the brown-hairy.

"Hey, what's up with Ino and Tenten, by the way?", I asked her as she guided me towards the door. "I mean, they have the same surname, but they don't look much alike, do they?"

Hinata shook her head. "That's because they're not biological sisters", she stated while we started walking over the schoolyard towards building C. "Tenten's an orphan and was adopted by Ino's family as they were four. It was very nice of them."

Thinking about how well off Mr and Mrs Yamanaka had looked, I agreed as we reached our lockers and I stuffed my first textbook into mine. "But they're really close, aren't they?"

She smiled her gentle smile. "Yeah, they are. We're down the corridor", she then told me and pointed. Hey, that could be possible for me to remember. "I think we're gonna watch "Romeo & Juliet" today", she continued.

"Do you know which version?", I curiously asked as we entered the room, which was filled with chatting people, who more or less all stared at me as Hinata guided me to an empty, two-seated desk next to the windows. I'd watched the movie several times, and it was totally okay. I did have some issue with the rhyming of the lines, though, but I guess, that was the point of the story.

"The one with Leonardo DiCaprio, you know, I think, at least", she replied as we sat down. Seconds later, the teacher - a mid-aged man who looked like the typical, a little boring, professor - backed into the room pulling a TV on a wheeled shelf sort of thing.

As he stood next to the TV to introduce today's lesson, I nervously held my breath in waiting for the embarrassing lightning to strike. "Good morning", he greeted, with a serious lack of enthusiasm. "As you all know, we've been talking a lot about Shakespear lately, so I thought you might wanna take a closer look at one of his maybe most famous creations. Mr Katsumi, would you pull down the curtains for us, please?" He started fumbling with the remote and I blinked.

"Hey, d'you think I should tell him I'm new, or something?", I whispered hesitantly to Hinata.

She looked a bit amused. "Not unless you want to", she replied. I shook my head with emphasis. "He doesn't really care. You can ask him for a textbook after the lesson."

Because the screen was kind of poor, and - as could have been expected - some individuals in the backer part of the room kept having a not-too-low conversation, I didn't really get caught up in the movie. But the hour passed quickly, and after, I walked up to the teacher (I still didn't know his name, but was too proud to ask, of course) and mumbled that I was a newbie. As Hinata had mentioned, he could have cared more, but I got my book and was satisfied.


	5. Chapter 5

**~ Cherry Black - - Chapter Five - Glare ~**

_~ Sakura's POV ~_

My timetable had Religion next in store for me, and I followed Hinata back to the lockers to wait for Tenten, who was in my class. I was leaning slightly against the closed door of my locker and was about to ask Hinata how on earth she managed to always know who had what subject (well, always maybe not, but it did seem a bit like it), as I caught eye on a familiar face.

The younger of the Uchiha brothers, Sasuke, was walking down the hall opposite of me. Tall, pale, drop-dead gorgeous - and with a stunningly cold and hard mask of arrogance. Yeah, I'd already established that he seemed to be one hell of an arrogant bastard - not to be prejudging or anything -, but it seemed a lot worse now than last Friday night in our apartment. I mean, I was almost certain I wouldn't even have been surprised if he'd walked right up to the headmaster and demanded the man to clear the way through the crowd for him. Or shine his shoes. Whatever.

Holding back a grimace, I looked away from his face. And there was the thing. It was annoyingly hard to turn my gaze away. Annoying because I wasn't someone who enjoyed staring at stuck-up snobs, and hard because - I hated to admit it - he was seriously _hot_. He was not only good-looking or even attractive, but downright beautiful. That sort of beautiful you just don't find in a high school, but rather on a runway or in a photo studio somewhere in Paris or LA.

"Hey, Sasuke!" My pink and dreamy thoughts seemed to literally skid to stop with the same screeching tires-effect you see in comics. I turned to stare unbelievably at the girl who'd squeaked the greeting (yeah, squeaked; it wasn't really "Hey, Sasuke" but rather a girly, high-pitched "Heeeey Sasukeee", and totally disgusting. I mean, yeah, I do flirty, girly stuff too - occasionally - but the worst thing you can do as a girl is to drop your dignity like that. Hell, it's not even attractive. Why would anyone think guys like brain-dead, constantly giggling girls?)

The girl, however, was doing exactly that. Sasuke didn't spare her a glance. And he must have heard her, unless he'd not suddenly turned deaf, because he'd just passed like two meters from us. The girl and her buddy kept staring after him, like in some sort of creepy trance. Sick.

Now I got a closer look at the guy who walked next to him. He was a bit shorter, and had longish, whitish-ly blond hair, in a similar style as the Uchiha. He was good-looking too, but not as stunningly as Sasuke, and even though he didn't look quite as disgustingly arrogant, there was a hint of that there too. One thing that was for sure; that I'd never seen him before - and he'd definitely not been at the Halloween-thingy.

"Hey, who's Sasuke's new buddy?", I lowly asked Hinata as he closed her locker.

She gave the two guys a look, who already had all but disappeared in the crowd again. "That's Suigetsu Hebi", she replied.

"They hang out a lot?", I asked, sounding as random as possible. I didn't want her to think that I cared overly for the Uchiha junior, but this gang thingy had really stuck to my mind. And if there _was_ a gang thingy, then it would indeed be weird if Sasuke hung around with this Hebi guy and he wasn't part of that gang.

Hinata shrugged. "Sorta. He transferred from Konoha South a few months ago", she stated, and continued as I probably looked kind of clueless; "Sasuke went there too, until about a year and a half ago."

Nuh-huh. I knew Konoha South High School was a lot more fancy and expensive and exclusive than this place, which of course figured.

Tenten showed up then, together with Ino and Kiba. "Looking forward to Religion too, huh?", Kiba asked and sounded remarkably depressed.

"Uh-huh?", I asked intelligently.

He shrugged and started rummaging around vividly in the locker two doors right from mine. "Looks a bit like you're about to puke, girl", he pointed out.

Naruto showed up behind Hinata and wrapped an arm around her, which made her giggle in a cute, shy way. "Give her a break, she just watched Teonardo DiCapri read Dr Seuss for one hour", he grinned.

"Could be. But we're doomed with Religion now, consider that", Kiba replied and sounded like someone who's on his way to the gallows.

Naruto shook his head. "I feel you, man."

"Is it really that bad?", I asked Tenten as we started making our way towards another building.

"No, it's not that bad", she said, sort of reassuring.

"Nah, it's just like, murdering boring", Kiba dryly cut in.

I'd always more or less loathed Religion, and already as the teacher showed up in the door, I felt bored. She was a skinny, elderly woman with a knot of turning-grey hair, and as soon as she'd shoved a really fat textbook into my hands, she threw herself into a slow preach about Maria Magdalena's life.

After five minutes, Kiba had started folding airplanes out of sheets from his notebook, and I watched with interest.

"Hey, moron, watch where you throw this shit, would ya?" I jumped slightly at the hissing voice, and turned to stare at no less than Suigetsu Hebi, who sat just a few seats behind us, and was holding one of Kiba's escaped planes as if it was something the cat puked up. Next to him, sat of course Sasuke, but he was looking sort of emptily at his opened notebook and didn't move a muscle.

"Well if your head wasn't so big and hairy, I maybe wouldn't have hit it", Kiba threw back, in a cold, mocking tone. The one - even I know that - is used when you want to pick a fight. Even though, the hair-comment was kinda well-laid, I noticed silently. It did look sorta odd.

Hebi's eyes narrowed and he looked like he was about to fly up from his seat. "Why, you little-"

He was cut off by a low hiss from Sasuke, who'd raised his one hand warily at his buddy and was now looking at the teacher. I did too, and saw that she was writing something on the board, with her back against the class. But every other face in the room was turned towards us, and they all looked like they were waiting for a nuclear bomb to go off.

I wasn't sure if he'd actually said "shut up", but the blonde did. He was still frowning and looked like he was ready to snap at the slightest hint. Irritated, I was about to snap at Kiba myself, and tell him it was stupid to lower himself to that sort of stuff, but he was already turning back to face the teacher, but he looked still more pissed than I'd ever seen him. (Okay, so I'd known him for like two days. Whatever, that's off the point.)

Tenten was frowning too, but as I sent her a questioning look, she just shrugged, smiled and rolled her eyes. Yet it was obvious that she didn't mean any of it, and somehow, it wasn't convincing at all.

Finally back in the corridor again, Tenten suggested we'd simply stuff our books in our bags and go directly to the cafeteria, which was in a separate building next to A. It was pretty big, and crowded, but there were big windows along the walls which kept the place from feeling too stuffed.

Still kind of nervous, not talking about puzzled about the totally screwed up scene during Religion, and thus not especially hungry, I just chose a small salad and a soda, and then followed the two of them to a table in a corner of the room, where Ino, Hinata, Naruto, Kankuro and Neji already sat.

As I sat down between Tenten and Ino, the blonde looked up from the paper-cartoon of noodles or something that she and Hinata were sharing. "Ten, hey, look, we need your help", she said, still chewing, and waved at me and Hinata with her chopsticks. "Like, desperately. Poetry, an absolute nightmare."

"Here, too", Kiba let up around a mouthful of lunch.

"Yeah, yeah, okay I'll help you", the brunette smiled. "You have a handout or something?" I had to hide a giggle as Ino all but dove into her bag and dug out the papers. "Oh, come on, Ino, this isn't even hard", Tenten sighed as she read it.

"Damn right it is", Kiba objected with emphasis. "Still got a headache from class."

"Hey, moron", someone interrupted behind me. As I turned in surprise, I saw the blonde Hebi guy stand close to our table, slightly playing with a paper-airplane and with a very foul expression in his face. Sasuke, however, was no where in sight this time. "Think this belongs to you", he continued with a sort of slow and lazy, cold voice, on the edge of disgustful.

"Why don't you just stick it up your rich little ass?" I was dangerously close to choke on my mouthful of soda at Naruto's really aggressive tone. He'd balled his fists and just like Kiba, he looked fully ready to fly at the intruding guy's throat.

I threw a short look around the table. They all had the same, horribly pissed and sort of aggressive looks, and it really did freak me out. While I was watching, Tenten looked to the tables closest - where a few people were watching the scene with mild curiosity - and then exchanged a short look with Ino, before she softly put a hand on Neji's shoulder. Ino gave Kiba an all but furious look which clearly meant "don't you dare". Well, at least some hadn't lost their mind completely.

Suigetsu's eyes seemed to glint briefly at Naruto's comment and he made a movement as though he was about to punch him in the face, but then I saw a familiar face behind him.

"You don't wanna do that." Gaara's voice was perfectly calm, yet cold and somehow threatening. It was literally scary; as much as the fierce, hateful look in his pale green eyes. Suigetsu spun around like if somebody had honked a trailer right behind him. He stared at Gaara with the same cold, hateful look he'd had before, but even I could see that he suddenly was all but scared shitless. I could barely keep myself from staring as Suigetsu gave us all one last, hateful glance and then he turned and disappeared behind a small group of chattering girls.

Gaara sat down next to his brother, who oddly enough gave him a sort of wary look, and opened his soda as if he'd just done nothing but have a little chat about class. Naruto and Kiba both looked kinda irritated, but Hinata, Ino and Tenten all seemed relieved.

"Where were we?", Tenten asked mildly.

"Poetry", Ino stated as she and Hinata both returned to their shared lunch.

"Oh well, then let's get it over with. Ready?" Ino dove back into her bag and pulled out a notebook, as did Kiba, and then they both looked expectantly at the brunette, who looked mildly amused. "Okay, so number one is about this guy who's reflecting over the end of the world. He says that it could end in fire, and compares that to desire, or in ice, and equals that with hate. Oh, and you better change those words a bit, or Kakashi's gonna kick your butt, Kiba."

While Kiba frowning muttered something inaudibly, Tenten looked at me. "You can write it down, too, you know, or do get it?"

I hesitated. "Not really, no."

"Well, then, pull out a pen and start writing, and you can do something worth the time at home", Ino grinned.

"But, isn't it cheating?", I asked, helplessly.

Tenten laughed softly. In fact, they all looked pretty amused, which made my cheeks burn slightly. I did _not_ want to be the good, nerdy little school girl. "Nah", Ino replied, still grinning, "it's called friends helping each other with homework."

I gave in, and grabbed my bag to find a pen and paper. It wasn't like I really had looked forward to doing this tonight. Kankuro chuckled. "_Bad_, bad girl", he said in a mocking tone, and I felt my checks turn warm again.

Okay, I KNOW that Hebi isn't Suigetsu's last name.. even though I still don't read the manga, I do know that Hebi is the group of bad kids Sasuke wants to take over the world with, or something just as stupid.. Yep, I've done my homework xD BUT, I still have no clue what Suigetsu's actual last name really is, and I'm too lazy to look it up, especially since our Internet is currently totally screwed up -.-' and anyways, I'm used to Hebi as his name now, so it's kinda got stuck x) so, fill me in, or deal with it :3 anyways, enjoy 3


	6. Chapter 6

**~ Cherry Black - - Chapter Six - Irritation ~**

_~ Mitsukai's POV ~_

"Why on _earth _did the girl have to be fucking _horse riding_?"

"Oh c'mon, Mitsukai, drop it already, wont ya?" I gave Deidara a very dark glare and slammed my locker shut, making the nearby standing Calculus teacher give me a long look as we passed him on our way out on the sunny schoolyard.

"Drop it? _Drop it?_ I can't drop it, you should know that", I snapped. "Because she flew off her stupid horse and broke her damn leg, now I'm stuck in the frickin' team. So, no, I wont drop anything for a while here."

He rolled his eyes as we walked around a group of younger kids, all giving me pretty interested looks due to my probably slightly high-pitched voice. Okay, now, that is just _not_ funny. Even if you're Deidara and not an absolute expert at relationships (college, honey, college), you do not roll your eyes.

He saw my furious looks then, and raised his hands in a soothing gesture. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry, yeah. It's horrible, totally awful. Better, hm?" I muttered something, hopefully inaudible. "I just don't get why you're even doing it, if it makes you so upset, yeah."

I sighed grimly. "I told you, I'm their only stand-in. I'll have to do it until they find someone else, at least." We'd reached our so called private spot, the two benches next to the south wall of building E. it was kinda amusing actually; even if the entire yard was clogged, nobody ever touched those two benches. Yep, my guys have some reputation, I'll admit that.

"Says what law, yeah?" I just gave him a long look. He was right, after all, but I wasn't gonna admit _that_ to anyone. Of course I didn't _have_ to do it. Only I knew what kind of pain in the ass it was to find someone else. Not that there weren't people who'd want the spot, there where loads of them, actually. But then there was the issue of who was, well, suitable. Shallow, yeah, yeah, I know, but that's just the way it works. Furthermore, I'd have to be involved in all that ass-pain, which I so did not want.

Sasori dropped down on the on the table attached to the bench on which Deidara and I now sat. "What's up?"

Deidara gave me an amused look. "Dunno. Her period maybe, yeah."

Sasori chuckled and I glared even harder. Even under normal circumstances, I found that comment seriously annoying. I mean, yeah, we probably get a bit cranky once a month, but that doesn't give guys permission to joke about it. We girls don't "_jokingly_" punch them in their groins, either, do we?

"What?", he laughed at my annoyance. "You have been totally cranky lately, you know, yeah", he pointed out.

I just grimaced. Nope, he still hadn't told me where he'd been admitted, and I was still as upset about it. Not that that should surprise anyone in their right mind. And thus, I snapped a lot more easily than usual. Point was, I was hurt too. If he really didn't wanna tell me at all, what kind of girlfriend would that make me?

"Whatever", I muttered.

"They want her back in the team, yeah", he then gleefully informed Sasori, to my even greater irritation.

The redhead chuckled again. "The cheerleading team, huh?"

I rolled my eyes. "No, the frickin' ice hockey team", I snapped. "_Of course_ the cheerleading, you jerk."

They both burst into snorting laughs. "But that's fun, eh?"

"Yeah, whoop-de-fucking-doo. Now I've gotta stick the stupid papers under Yamanaka's nose. Couldn't the stupid woman find _any one_ else who's in the team?" The coach of the cheerleading team had run into me after the second lesson and shoved a couple of papers for the Captain Yamanaka into my hands, claiming she'd walked around the entire school but couldn't find her. Sure. Now I did not only have to spend two hours a week with Ino, I also had to go have a chitchat with her very soon.

"What papers?" Itachi sat down on the other bench, together with Konan. Oh joy, now even Itachi was curious. How uncanny.

"She's back on the cheerleading team", Sasori proclaimed, without even trying to hide his amusement.

"Why?", Konan asked, and was the first one who even had the nerve to not amuse herself over my despair.

"Some girl flew off her stupid horse and broke her leg", I muttered and stared over the yard. What I saw there, made me grind my teeth, almost literally. The two Yamanakas, Hinata and Sakura where just sitting down below their favorite oak right by the school wall. Oh well, here we go.

I got up and started making my way across the yard; all while I regretted every single step the second I put my foot down. "Hey, Ino", I muttered as I came close enough. She immediately broke off whatever she'd been saying to her so called sister figure and stared at me as if I'd grown two extra heads and turned shining blue.

"Papers from the coach." I took one step closer to be able to reach her the bunch of papers, and then stepped back again. "And", I briefly braced myself for the moment of truth, "some girl broke her leg."

Ino was frowning down into the papers. "Yeah", I heard. "Hey, Hinata, who'd we put as stand-in?"

I stared at her. Seriously? Okay, no, I was not so self-observed that I was shocked by her forgetting me. Only, it seemed a bit too good to be true. "Me", I dryly threw in, before I could stop myself and make a run for it.

She looked a bit like fallen from the skies. "Huh-uh", she muttered, spending her papers a little more attention than necessary. "Well, uh, you in then?"

Hell no. "Sure", I muttered, a bit briskly. She wasn't seriously expecting my to put my tail between my legs and flee, was she?

"Well, okay, then, good", she said, sort of blabbering. I actually rose one eyebrow. Not that I was too keen on this either, but at least I had my speech under control. Uncalled for, I looked up and briefly looked up, and for one heart beat, I looked into those pale green eyes again. Gaara sat slightly slouched on the far end of the picnic bench, leaning his back against the oak, next to Naruto. I could have imagined it, but I thought I actually saw that crooked, kinda cocky smile of his playing on his lips. Nu-uh.

As a matter of fact they looked like the frickin' picture of the joys of high school; all spread out loosely on and around the two picnic benches with books and bags and whatnot. Hinata sat curled up between Naruto's spread legs, chatting with Sakura Haruno next to her, who sent me a small greeting smile; and Tenten sat on the other bench, her head resting on Neji's shoulder while she read some book and he was discussing whatnot with Shikamaru.

"So, Monday and Friday 5 pm., then?", I asked, a bit flailing; suddenly desperately wanting to leave this herd of blissfulness.

"Uhmm, being Manager and stuff, maybe you oughta be there half past 4", Ino replied.

I stared at her, seriously shell-shocked. "Being what?", I choked as if I'd never heard the word before. Which of course wasn't the case, since I'd been Manager as Ino first became Captain last year - but that was a lifetime ago. How the hell was I supposed to prepare myself for the fact that that stupid horse-girl obviously had taken my spot?

"Uh", Ino said. "Nami was Manager, but I guess, if you don't want to, Hinata could …"

Oh. _Dear._ It was tempting, though, but the idea of Ino thinking I might not handle it, made me rethink. "No, I've got it. Anything else?"

"Not that I know of", she said, a bit floatingly.

"Well then, see ya", I muttered and turned on my heal. I vaguely waved off the others questions about how it'd gone, gave Deidara a short see ya-kiss, and then fled back to my locker, where I all but smashed into Suigetsu Hebi - of all possible people.

"Whoa, easy", he laughed and stepped aside to let me into my locker. I didn't look at him. There was a sore, rough feeling inside of me, a helpless irritation that wanted to turn into a heart tearing sadness.

"Oh, shut up, wont ya", I muttered into the cabinet; which let my voice echo slightly. He chuckled, and I cut a short, guilty gaze over my shoulder, past Sasuke - who looked just as mildly amused over my irritation as everyone else - to check if any of the others had noticed his company through the glass-doors.

Being all gang-obsessed, Itachi, Sasori and Deidara were all but amused over the fact that Sasuke sometimes hung out with the white-blonde. I was honestly all but waiting for Deidara to blow his front teeth out if he even saw me talking to him. Me myself wasn't especially keen of him, either, but I knew Sasuke thought he was okay, so I was gonna shut up.

"You ready?", I asked the raven-haired then, and followed him towards building A. As we walked through building C, he turned towards me, but before he'd said anything, I broke him off. "Just … don't, okay?", I sighed.

He chuckled lowly.

"Excuse me, I'm new, could you tell me-"

I turned at the slightly familiar voice and saw Sakura smiling nervously at a group of giggling girls. "Sakura! Hey, you alright?"

She laughed as she saw me. "Mitsukai, thanks god, I've got no clue where to go."

I smiled. "Don't worry, we'll clear you up. What do you have now? Where are the others, by the way?"

"Physics", she replied, "and I have no clue, Ino seemed a bit, uh, out of tune." She gave me a slightly amused look.

Ino was out of tune, huh? Still, glad that she didn't pull the subject further up, I latched onto the first part of her answer. "Good, we're on our way right there-"

"Sakura?" I knew the voice very well, and there was no frickin' doubt on earth I didn't know to whom it belonged. Still I spun around to gawk up at him.

"Gaara", I murmured - extremely pointlessly. The guy sure hadn't forgotten his own name and thus didn't need to be reminded of it, either.

"Mitsukai", he replied calmly, and then he turned back to the rosette. "Ino told me to look for you, but I guess you've been found."

I hid a frown as we all made our way towards class. Ino had asked him to look for Sakura, was that right? Who was she, mum of the lost hens? How utterly moving.

As we entered the class-room, the teacher - a sorta tiny man with puffs of white hair that looked like cotton candy and a thick, white-grayish moustache, who everyone called mostly called Einstein -, hushed towards us.

"Good, you're the last ones", he said. "We're changing lab partners today, so just stand somewhere for a while."

He hurried back in front of the group then and repeated louder; "Well, people, we're changing lab partners today, as you might have noticed. You just sit down with your partner as I say your name, and then we'll go from there." I had an itchy feeling that said homework research project - something that wasn't fun any way you slice it. I had been with Sasuke until now, and there wasn't anyone else present I'd very much enjoy spending my evenings in the library with.

"Here we go, then; Inuziki and Aburame. Kamizuki and Ito. Katsuki and Aoyama. Nakamura and Ochiai. Haruno and Uchiha." To my great surprise, Sakura gave Sasuke's back a very disapproving look as she followed him to their desk. I also noticed the girls named Katzuki and Aoyama giving her long Dark Glares of Doom, and took a mental note to advice her to get a very strong and reliable armor if she wanted to survive to Christmas.

"… Yoon and Sabakuno", Einstein efficiently cut off my thoughts, and I swallowed a sigh. The heart tearing irritation was back again. Seriously, it wasn't even funny anymore. I mean, I knew the universe had a downright sick sense of humor, but this was just cruel.

We sat down and I stared silently at the desk in front of me. "You shouldn't let her do that."

I turned to stare at him, and probably looked about as intelligent as a blowfish that just fell down in a desert. He was slouched back in his chair, hands slightly in his pockets, and looked like the coolness in human shape. "Who? What?", I choked, very brilliantly.

"Yamanaka", he answered calmly. "You don't wanna be in the team."

"Uh-huh", I muttered, and then shrugged slightly as the teacher flew past and let a small bunch of papers fall down on our desk. I kept looking at them, and not him as I muttered; "Well, the world never gave a shit what I want, did it?" I gave him a short glance, and was rewarded with one of his seriously rare, cocky half-smiles.

To avoid beaming back and seem like an utter moron - which was a weird urge since I still felt like crawling into a dark corner somewhere at the butt of the world and cry my eyes and soul out -, I eyed through the paper in front of me. Magnetic fields of the sun and how they affect the humanity? Seriously? That doesn't even make sense. And it's sure as hell not funny. Shouldn't it be something nice and embarrassing like pheromones, perhaps?

"Magnetic fields of the sun?", Gaara asked, very close to my shoulder, and made me jump briskly. "What's so fun 'bout that?"

"Uh, nothing, I guess."

"You just laughed", he pointed out.

"Nu-huh", I murmured.

About Mitsukai's last name… I seriously couldn't find anything fitting at all, so I just snatched the surname of one of my favorite Asian stars, Yoon DooJoon (or DuJun, whatever O_o) from the Korean band B2ST/BEAST :D (me heart B2ST forevaah ^_^)

thus, it's not veeryyy Japanese.. well, not at all as a matter, of course.. Obviously.. but I hope it'll do . well, to be honest I prefer YoSeob, but I thought Yang is a little toooo Asian-cliché _ (and I haven't bothered to look up G-Dragon's last name yet xD) let's just say her ancestors immigrated from Korea, hee-hee… xD


	7. Chapter 7

ohmigosh, it's been ageeeees since I updated, I feel absolutely horrible T_T but it seems as though my brain only can handle so much, and with both homework, several stories running at the same time, a quite newly founded, still-growing, heavy addiction to k-pop, and _also _trying not to abandon my social life completely, I managed to totally forget that I've got this story uploaded here (I have it running on deviantArt, too, hee-hee ^_^ should've known it wasn't gonna go smoothly.. _ *strangles urge to faceplant into keyboard in self-punishment*)

and as embarrassing this is - can someone be an _ANGEL_ and tell me how _the everlasting fuck _a computer-retard like me is supposed to reply to a review on this site? it's driving me crazy but I just can't figure it out! O_o *hides face in shame* and to all the absolutely beautiful people on this place who update their fanfics on a regular basis, you are amazing ( and I refuse to believe that you are human)

**~ Cherry Black - - Chapter Seven - Hints ~**

_~ Sakura's POV ~_

I'd rarely felt so uncomfortable as when I sat there, next to the raven haired Uchiha junior. He sat wordlessly and stared out into the empty air in front of his nose, while I'd impatiently started to bob my left foot up and down, in an almost manic pace. I would have tried to start some kind of conversation, but I had no clue how to. I suddenly realized that I'd never spoken a word directly to him, and then I knew even less what to say. Panicking, I threw a helpless gaze at the clock, and wanted to cry. It was almost twenty minutes left until break. Twenty minutes is one hell of a long time!

My gaze fell on the desk two rows in front of and one to the left of ours, where Mitsukai and Gaara sat. As I watched, she gave him a look, and then laughed a bit, which made him give her a sort of crooked half-smile in return. The conversation between them wasn't exactly the kind I'd have with Ino or Hinata for example, but, hell - they were talking! Gaara. Was. Talking. And here sat I, in total dead-silence.

Suppressing the urge to drum the nails of my right hand against the desk, I leaned forward and rested my chin in my other palm. Slightly absentmindedly, I stared at the two others again. There was too much chatter in the room for me to understand any of it, but I saw him lean closer and obviously read over her shoulder. How did they get along so well, anyways?

So I'd only been around the guy for, two days (just two days? It felt like at least a week), but I swore I'd never seen him a decent conversation with anyone but Naruto. And seriously, the way Naruto talked like a waterfall even I'd have problems getting a word in the air, so that could barely count. And it _did_ seem a bit like they knew each other, like old buddies, which was odd in and of itself.

Before I could flail around further in my thoughts, I realized with a start that Sasuke was watching me. He sat leaned back and just looked at me, without any certain of emotion at all. Like he was staring out a window or something. "_What_?", I snapped, without thinking. Oopsie.

He cocked one eyebrow. "Hn?"

"I -" the dismissal bell rang piercingly and made me jump. "Nothing", I murmured and ruffled my papers together and got up, without looking at him.

"Hey, Sakura", Mitsukai waved through the crowd as soon as I'd left the room, and I made my way towards her.

As I threw one gaze over my shoulder at the dark haired boy a few steps at me, I could have sworn he looked slightly amused. Seriously, the guy was such a … well, not freak maybe, that's kinda rude, but yeah, right there in that neighborhood.

"Feel like pointing the way to Calculus?", I smiled, even though merely pointing probably wouldn't help much.

She gave a grin, but I couldn't help but notice that she looked kinda … tired. "Sure, I've got Geography now, so it's on the way", she informed lightly.

We walked side by side in silence until we got out on the school grounds, and my mouth decided I'd been quiet too long. "So, uh, you had a good time last Friday?", I tried. Okay, that's kinda old lady talk, but whatever.

She smiled, though. "Yeah, it was nice", she nodded. "Where're you from, by the way?"

She was actually the first one to ask me that here, I realized. "Well, we lived in Tokyo until three years ago" … and then everything went to hell, a small, evil voice whispered coldly in the back of my mind, but there was no way I was gonna say that out loud. Not exactly small talk material. "Since, we've moved around a lot", I said instead, shoving the voice back down in its dusty drawer where it belonged. "My mum's job, ya know."

She nodded, and from that, the chitchat went easier. She was easy to talk to, I noticed. Not as word filled as Ino, perhaps, but still, nice. She dropped me off at door C-10, and I soon spotted Hinata's waving hand. Next to Naruto and Gaara's dark red poof of hair, I noticed as I came closer. Obviously he hadn't bothered to wait for me after Physics as he saw that I'd already gotten myself a guide.

As I sat down behind him in the empty seat next to Hinata, I suddenly regretted not having had the courage to ask Mituskai what was up between the two of them. Not likely that I'd even dare to think about asking him about personal stuff. Not that he was scary or so (well, maybe except from when he was telling bad boys, like that Hebi-guy, to go to hell, that is), he just wasn't someone I'd imagine having a private conversation with.

To my huge relief, I'd already been through this chapter of Calculus in my last school, so even if the tasks weren't exactly the same, I knew how to deal with it, and the hour passed more or less quickly. After that, we met up with Ino and Kiba, hand-in-hand, outside Japanese class. I had to hide a giggle together with Ino and Hinata as Kakashi with huge emphasis proclaimed that he was so impressed by Kiba's reflections over the poems that he wanted to read it out loud for the class, and then did so while Kiba himself grinned mischievously.

"Hey, what's the deal with the Uchiha's, anyways?", it just kinda fell out of my mouth as I'd just left the school grounds together with Tenten and Ino - Hinata had just waved us off and made her way to volleyball-training. (I could find my way home by myself, but a little company was nice, and well, kinda safer too, just in a worst-case-situation of disorientation.) I'd just spotted a now familiar, raven black head about fifteen meters in front of us, together with the rest of their gang.

"What do you mean?", Ino asked while fighting with the knot of her tie.

"Well, uh …" Just now I really realized I couldn't actually put a finger on their oddness, even less put it in words. "Arrogant, dead-silent jerks" did sound not only shallow but also very bitchy and prejudging. "Well, they're like … crazy rich, right?", I tried again.

Ino had gotten rid of her tie and now started plaiting her long, thick hair. "Yeah, richest in town, at least", she nodded. "Mr Uchiha owns like this major hotel chain, five star, and they're like all over the world."

"Really?" I gave Itachi's ponytail a slightly dubious look.

"Their family has owned those hotels for like, centuries", she continued while ultimately tying the tie around her braid.

"About seventy years", Tenten helpfully put it as we crossed the street.

"Yeah, so they could all retire now and their great-great-great-great", she hesitated and cocked her head to the side slightly, "great-great-grandchildren would still be rich as gods." I remembered her parents and guessed, coming from her, that ought to mean something. Jeez, no wonder the guy hadn't all trees in the woods.

"But his mother works at the hospital, right?", I asked.

"Yep, she's a surgeon, just like mum", Ino nodded. A bit befuddled, like my mother would say, I wondered what the heck two surgeons had been doing at my mum's nurse party, but I wasn't rude enough to ask Ino.

"They both went to South until 'bout 18 months or so", Tenten went on, obviously getting more caught up in subject

"Yeah, but Sasuke switched like five, six weeks, earlier than Itachi", Ino replied.

"Nobody really knows why they wanted to switch, though", Tenten filled in.

"But supposedly, their dad threw a major fit about it", Ino continued. "South's more, you know, exclusive and stuff, so I guess he thought they were better off there." Once again, I thought off her own wealthy-seeming parents. Earlier today I'd also noticed that her boots were from Gucci, so now I was slightly puzzled by her perspective. "But Sasuke didn't wanna be around his big brother too much, so he switched schools. Only Itachi followed right after, of course." A kind of cool, almost aggressive tone had slipped into her otherwise pleasant voice, and I just barely could keep myself from sending her suspicious looks.

"And, _supposedly_, he and Mitsukai had, ya know, a thing last year." I didn't know whether to stare at her, because of her sneering tone, or at the two coal-black haired shapes in front of us. They were walking next to each other, but her blond boyfriend had an arm neatly tucked around her waist.

"Really?", I choked.

"Nobody knows for sure, though", Tenten filled in.

I saw the blonde stare at her sister, looking more than just mildly upset. "_Oh, no_", she then said with emphasis. "No, no, nobody knows for sure, not at all. I of all people, should know, and I know he did ch-" she broke herself off, and I could easily tell regretted saying that. What the hell? What did he do? And to _her_!

"Anyway, she got together with Deidara just a few weeks after", Tenten smoothly rounded up.

"Uh-huh", I mumbled. "And, uh" - I gave Ino a nervous glance, remembering the super-odd catfighty scene from today's lunch break, but I was seriously curious - "what about her? Mitsukai, I mean?"

Ino shrugged and grinned a bit. "Well, uh, she's kinda unique, really", she said in a smug tone that I wasn't sure I really liked.

"Oh, Ino …" Tenten started, as if she wanted to object with the blonde.

"Hey, calm down", Ino laughed at her sisters up-given protest, and slipped an arm through hers. "I'll just tell her my story, then she can make her own opinion about."

"How objective of you", the brunette dryly muttered and led her sister across the street again, while I followed.

"Ain't I?", Ino grinned. "Well, whatever. Now, Mitsukai", she seemed to keep her gaze at the distant shape in front of us. "For a start, she's one of those foster kids, you know. She came here about a year or so ago and yeah, well, her foster-mother is Deidara's mother."

"Huh?" I blinked. Now, that was unique, indeed. "But she and Deidara …"

"Are not biologically related", Tenten answered smoothly. "Also, she moved out from their family's apartment right after they got together."

"But it _is_ weird, don't you think, Sakura?", Ino pressed stubbornly, and I had to give her right. Biologically related or not, weird was just the beginning of it.

"It's kinda odd, yeah", I agreed.

"And she was kinda a bad kid before she got here, too", Ino continued. Tenten gave her a meaningful glance, and she rolled her eyes. "Supposedly", she added. "Moved around from family to family and snatched and stuff, you know."

I frowned. I thought about the no doubt nice-seeming girl I'd chatted with before. It was more than just weird to think of her lurking around in sulky backstreets and snatch stuff in the stores or even out of people's pockets. Probably getting into some street-fights, too. Not that the Deidara kid, or his red-head-buddy - whose name had slipped my mind - seemed the most well, uh, decent and careful guys, to me, but she was somehow different. She was totally short! And she'd just led me around half the school to find my classes. (Okay, so it was one class and she'd had her own just doors away, and, granted, length had little to do with ones personality and stuff. Still.)

Before I'd gotten to express my feelings, Ino asked; "Hey, why were you wondering, by the way? Heard some interesting gossip?"

I laughed grimly. "Nope, but I got paired up with Sasuke for Physics today." Terrified, I stared at them as they both started giggling like crazy. "What on earth is so funny with that? It's _not_ funny. He didn't say a word the entire class! Now tell me how you work off a homework research project without talking?"

Tenten grinned. "Research project? Why on earth do you sound so grumpy, Sakura?"

"Well, he's an ass", I burst out.

"A very hot ass", Ino grinned even wider, while Tenten waggled her eyebrows, very uncharacteristically. "He does _have_ a very hot ass, too."

Just then, I saw the Night Lane sign, right in front of me. "You two have boyfriends", I said disapprovingly, without being able to keep from giggling at Ino's dancing eyebrows. "And here's where I'll leave you lunatics, anyway."

"Oh yeah, right", Ino smiled as she and her sister, still linked arms and still looking very amused, stopped next to me. "But hey, why don't you come with us?"

"Yeah, to our place", Tenten agreed smiling, "we'll eat something, do homework and stuff. Hinata will probably show up after volleyball, too."

I hesitated. Apart from the fact that all of the girls were seriously kinda great, I was all but dying to see how Ino and Tenten really lived, after all there juicy hints and details. "I'd love to", I then said, "but I promised my mum we'd do some shopping later. But any other time, certainly." It did actually seem like something they did on regular basis, after all.

They nodded smilingly and swiftly pulled me into a small hug, still with their arms linked, before I waved goodbye and turned towards our place. I stomped up the stairs, kicked my shoes off and changed into jeans and my mother super-cozy cashmere-sweater that I found on the couch before I made my way to the kitchen, where I decided to make dinner for me and her - something I hadn't done since we moved here.

All the while, the thoughts drifted around in my head; about everything Ino and Tenten had said. About Mitsukai being in foster-care, and the supposed thing she'd had with Sasuke. Again, I regretted not asking about the curious connection between her and Gaara Sabakuno.

As waited for the boiling rice, I thought about the thing Ino'd said about Sasuke not wanting to be in same school as his brother. I didn't know much about Itachi, and had just caught very short glimpses of him a few times at school. The only thing I was sure of about him, was that the memory of his perfectly obvious, extreme arrogance all but made my skin itch. And I was pretty sure I'd never heard him say a single word.

There was one thing that had my attention more than anything else, though. What on earth had Sasuke done to, or maybe with, Ino? I couldn't imagine those two have something in common at all.

"Sakura, I'm home, darling", my mother soon called from the hallway, and moments after, she stepped into the kitchen, catching me in a warm, soft hug.

"Hi mum", I murmured against her shoulder, that smelled sweetly of her perfume - mixed with something else, too, though. "Oh, ugh, you smell hospital."

She laughed and rolled her big, honey-colored eyes as she pulled back slightly, still holding onto me with one arm. "Well, why could that be?" I had to giggle a bit. "Oh, you've made dinner?", she then realized and sniffed. "You're so sweet."

I grinned. "I know, but thanks anyway", I butted her with my hip. "C'mon, then, let's eat." We did, while I listened to her telling me about her day. Smelly or not, she did have an interesting job.

Talking about … "Hey, mum", I burst out as we finally were on our way down the stairs, heading to the shopping centre in midtown. "How come you're friends with Ino's mommy, by the way? I mean, she's a surgeon, right? And you're a nurse, so …"

As we walked over the parking lot towards the subway-station, I linked my arm around hers. We'd barely spent any quality time at all since we came here. Partly, probably because I'd been seriously grumpy at her ever since, I had to admit. It wasn't even her fault that she'd been moved.

"I'm a scrub nurse, honey", my mother answered. "There's a difference. Anyways, Mikoto Uchiha is the head surgeon in our department, but Inohimi is second in rank."

"So, basically, you invited the entire department?", I asked.

"Kinda", she grinned. I shook my head laughingly, but I had a strange feeling. Strange, but at the same time wonderful. It felt like I was on my way to getting my mum back. My mum from before, well, before everything went to hell.


	8. Chapter 8

**b~ Cherry Black - - Chapter Eight - Taste ~/b**

i~ Mitsukai's POV ~/i

As I woke up on Wednesday, I was filled to the edge with that horrible, sore, hurtful frustration again, and all I wanted to do was curl up under my blanket again and cry my eyes out. And I didn't even know why.

Uh. Okay, that was a lie. My boyfriend still refused to tell me that he had been admitted at a college, two days ago I'd been stuck into a homework project with my former best friend, and on Friday I was gonna have to do cheerleading for one hour. There's some reasons.

Wednesdays were always slow, but this particular one was one hell of a pain in the ass. All the teachers seemed unusually keen on giving us boring tasks that required high focus and attention, and on top of all there was a wet, icy wind dancing around town. iAnd/i I had a double hour Geometry last. How. Utterly. Great.

I was leaning against the wall next to the Geometry's door and glaring at the books I had clutched in my arms as a fling of soft pink caught my gaze, and looked up to see Sakura leaning against the wall opposite of the corridor. She hadn't seen me yet, but before I'd waved, the teacher shoved his way past me to open the door.

I got in and sat down in my usual seat and was about to look for her as she showed up right next to me. "This seat taken?", she smiled her greeting.

"Nah, go ahead", I replied and pulled my books over to my side of the desk. "So, you doing good? You've been here almost a week now, right?"

"Yeah, I'm actually doing way better than I thought", she laughed lightly.

I nodded smilingly and watched as she got her new books from the teacher and a short preach about what we'd done and were planning to do this semester. Then the class fell silent for a few moments as everyone busied themselves with their problems. After about twenty minutes, I got stuck.

"Hey, Sakura, could you give me a girl's opinion on something?", I whispered without thinking.

She looked up, running a hand through her pink strands. "If it's more interesting than this crap, sure", she said with a small yawn.

Oh sure, it is interesting alright, I thought bitterly. I hadn't planned on talking with her about this. I was inot/i the kind of girl who spills all her private stuff in any random person's face. But somehow, I really, really wanted to. "Well, if you had a boyfriend who's been admitted to college and doesn't tell you, what'd you make of it?"

She rose her eyebrows and put a hand over her mouth to hide a small, obviously unbelieving laugh. Then she pressed her lips shut again, looking a bit guilty. "Sorry, that's not funny", she whispered.

I shook my head with emphasis, but had to laugh quietly, too. "Well, kick his butt", she mumbled lowly, giving the teacher a wary look. Said man sat behind his desk, had put his feet up on it and had buried his nose in some thick book. Nerd. "Did Deidara really …?"

"Yeah", I whispered. "His mum mentioned it to me. I just don't get why. It's not really something you forget, right?"

She smiled a bit, and shook her head again. "Not even if you're a guy. Well", she hesitated slightly, "do you know if he, you know, keeps other stuff from you?"

I shrugged. "Not really, no. I mean, he's not a cheater, or something." I hesitated too. "Well, sometimes, he plays sick when he's gotten into a fight, because he knows I hate it. Sometimes", I quickly added, not wanting her to think that I was together with some crazy-ass street fight-kid.

She seemed to take it lightly, though. "Yeah, but that's not the same thing, is it? Did you ask him?", she then asked. "If he's gotten in somewhere, I mean?"

I shook my head, frowning. "No, I haven't", I admitted. "But, it's not-"

"Something you should have to ask about", she nodded. Hell, she was good at this stuff. "How long have you guys been together, anyways?"

"Nine months", I replied.

She smiled. "That's some time."

"It is", I agreed, and then went back to subject. "But I don't want him to think I've been sneaking up on him, ya know?"

"Yeah. But if his mother told you, then it's not really sneaking, is it?"

I nodded. "Okay, I'll give him till Sunday, then it's butt-kicking", I concluded, and she laughed her agreement. We kept on chatting silently during the rest of the lesson, and sooner than expected, the bell rang.

At her locker, I waved goodbye and briefly rummaged around in my own for some homework, and then pulled my hoodie up against the rainy wind as I walked out on the school grounds. As I'd passed the gates, a sharp, whistling sound caught my attention, and as I looked around, I saw Konan waving from next street corner.

"Hey, what's up," I greeted as I reached her. "Wanna grab some nutrition together?"

She shook her head, as we started walking side by side. "Yeah, on Friday. Gotta go work my ass off today and tomorrow." Yeah, right. I just remembered she worked in her parents store every Wednesday and Thursday. Every Wednesday and Thursday since I first met her, as a matter of fact. I sure wasn't quite straight today.

"Yeah, not likely", I replied dryly. "Friday's cheerleading, remember?"

"Oh yeah", she nodded. "Hey, why you doing that, anyway? Thought Yamanaka's still pissed at ya?"

I snorted. "Sure she is", I answered grimly. "'Cause otherwise, I've gotta help them find somebody else. That's a lot more pain in the ass than just being in the team."

She shrugged. "Guess you'd know."

"Hey, Konan, you guys didn't get your acceptance-letters yet, did ya?" Since I'd promised myself to cut Deidara some slack, I hadn't planned on bringing the annoying subject up. But as the subject still was droning around in my head after the chat with Sakura, I thought, whatever.

"Yeah, 'bout two weeks ago", she replied.

"Really?", I all but hissed.

She gave me a look. "Yeah. You okay?"

"Fine", I muttered.

She snorted. "Fine looks different", she said dryly. "C'mon, spit it out already, before you choke or something."

I shook my head. "Deidara seems to have forgotten to tell me whether he got in. Let alone where."

She rose a bluish eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"Yep", I muttered curtly. "Would you mind telling me where he's off to in the fall or do I have to ask his frickin' mother?"

"I heard he got in to both Suna and Iwa, but I think he's gonna go to Iwa."

I nodded and suddenly felt an urge to be alone. "Yeah, well, see ya." She nodded and waved as I took off to walk over the street.

I couldn't really tell if I was pissed or just hurt. Both maybe. What bugged me even more, was why he just wouldn't tell me. What the hell did he expect would happen? Not that I knew if either of us would be perfectly fine with a long-distance relationship, but whatever, it was his life and his education and seriously, did he really think I'd be bitchy enough to ask him to study closer so our romance wouldn't suffer? Who was I? His mother or something? Definitely not.

Grimly I stared at the Math problems on the page in front of me as I sat on my bed. It was almost half past seven, but I just couldn't focus on the Algebra-stuff. While I was in the middle of contemplating whether or not I should interrupt my useless studying-efforts and have a smoke to clear my mind, my annoyingly screechy bell rang.

I stumbled out of the bed and pulled the door open, with a tiny hope that it might be Sasuke or even Sasori or Konan, and not … "Hey, Dei", I murmured.

"Hey." Then he rose a eyebrow. "You're not gonna let me in?"

"I'm really tired", I said, trying not to hiss at him, "and I've got Math's homework."

He shook his head. "Okay, c'mon, baby, what's wrong, hmm?", he crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned against the doorframe. "Did I do something?"

I gave up. "No", I spat, "you certainly did not. For example, you sure as hell did not tell me about the tiny, unimportant little fact that you're going to Iwa next fall."

He frowned. "Oh, that."

"iOh, that/i?", I hissed. "Yeah, ithat/i. Just for the record, ithat/i is stuff people usually tell their girlfriends. And not three weeks after the letter!"

"Look, baby, I was gonna tell you, yeah", he murmured and stepped closer to slide his arms around my hips. "I just didn't know how to."

"How to what? How is that so hard?", I wanted to know and kept my own arms in a tight hug around myself.

"You know it's far away, yeah", he said softly and looked sort of downhearted.

"Yeah, I know. So?" I denied myself to briskly ask him to compare each of our current grades in Geography.

"So I was worried you might …" he sighed and I felt him softly caress my lower back.

"Might what?", I asked, softer now. It wasn't like him to hesitate like this.

He looked at me with worry in the ocean-blue eyes. "Might not see the point in staying with me if I'm gonna in a few months anyway", he murmured.

My chin sort of fell down. "Seriously?", I almost laughed in amazement. He looked a bit offended at my cheerful reaction. I shook my head and slid my arms around his neck. "C'mon, that's silly", I murmured. "We'll figure it out, don't worry." I rose on my toes and kissed him. His arms around me tightened and he deepened the kiss. I enjoyed his lips on mine for a short while, but then I pulled away.

"Hey, I'm still tired and studying", I said softly and gave him another, short kiss.

He laughed. "Okay, okay, I'm out, yeah", he gave me a last squeeze and stepped back. "But we're fine?"

"We're fine", I smiled and blew him a kiss before I closed the door.

Yes, I realize that you don't get college acceptances a few weeks after Halloween .. xD only, I didn't think of it as I got this story-kinda-idea, and it'd seriously mess everything up if I'd change it now .. so you're just gonna have to deal with the timely incorrectness :P


	9. Chapter 9

**~ Cherry Black - - Chapter Nine - Taste ~**

_~ Mitsukai's POV ~_

As I sat down on the bed again and lit a cigarette, I realized the itchy, downhearted feeling from earlier lingered. Yeah, we'd cleared it up. But, the fact was still that he'd waited two fricking weeks with telling me. Worried or not, you do not do that. No way.

"Ass", I muttered and got up. Cigarette squeezed between my lips, I grabbed my jacket and stepped into my boots and was soon half-running down the stairs.

As I'd left the small, kinda skunk-y store just a few blocks from my place, with a new pack of cigarettes, I stood on the curb for a while, hesitating. I knew I shouldn't. It sure was the most ass-ish thing I'd do for a long while, I hoped at least. But it would probably make me feel better, a small longing voice told me from the back of my mind. I bit my lip briefly, then I gave up.

I kept my quick pace through the city until I stopped in front of a well-known house. The early night was clear and moonlight made the white building look even bigger and more magnificent. Not that I liked that especial building extraordinary much, but it still looked pretty amazing. Huge, white and with that powerful Victorian touch to it.

Strangling back a shiver, I took a deep breath and then slid between two of the bars in the blackish iron gates. I started hurrying then, my heart slightly picking up the pace as I followed the wide drive-way up to the mansion and then followed the house-wall to the back side. Yep, a little sneaking like this seemed to be a perfect cure to depressive, boring studying-nights. Praying silently, I pressed down the handle of the back door, supposedly some sort of servant's entry.

A small smile played on my lips as it easily slid open. Silently, I slipped out of my boots and tapped down the short corridor, then across the huge hall and up the staircase. I stopped in front of the last door in the hall and knocked, as discretely as possible.

"What?", he all but barked distantly.

"It's Mitsukai", I said softly. I heard movement, and then the sound of the lock clicking open. Looking more than a little surprised, Sasuke let me in. He was wearing a tank and the moonlight that fell in through the big windows played over his pale skin.

"What are you doing here?", he asked as he locked the door again and I let myself down on his big bed. "Do you need anything?"

Knowing exactly what he meant, I shook my head. "Nah, I'm fine." He sat down on the other side of the bed, next to his open laptop, which he'd apparently been using as I interrupted. "Do you?", I then asked.

He gave a small, crooked smirk. "Actually, it wouldn't hurt."

"Well, then, I'm your girl", I replied. He slid over the bed towards me (yeah, slid; any normal person would have crawled awkwardly, but he managed to make it look almost graceful.) He now sat with the one leg slightly pulled up and the other slightly hanging down the edge of the bed.

"Sure?", he asked lowly.

"Yeah", I murmured. It wasn't revenge. Really. I just didn't care particularly that we'd not done this for almost a year because of the very reason that it pissed Deidara off. He looked doubtfully and cocked his head to the side ever so slightly, making the moonlight paint a raven-bluish glint in his hair. "Well, you need it, right?", I urged.

Without answering he laid back to open the drawer of the nightstand next to the head part of the bed, while I pulled my legs up on the mattress and slid a bit closer to him. As he sat up again, he held a small, glistening razorblade in his right hand, while he let the other rest on the small of my back. Ever so slightly nervous, I looked down on my own left hand as I turned it palm-up and raised it slightly.

I bit my lip as the blade ran across my wrist and left a slightly burning line behind. Then he lifted my wrist up to his lips, and I closed my eyes as a wave of pure, intense pleasure ran through my body. A low, breathy moan escaped my lips. I felt his hand slide around my waist and pull me closer to him. Breathing heavier, I slid my free hand up his chest and under the back of his top. He straightened his leg and I moved to straddle his lap. I felt him suck a bit harder, making us both moan lowly, and I moved my hips slightly against him.

He swiped his tongue over the slightly sore wound, and then softly slid his hand down my arm to my elbow as he looked at me. Still panting from the pleasure, I laid my hand against his neck and kissed him. He kissed me back, roughly. He pressed me close against his body and slid his tongue into my mouth, and I could taste the sweetish hint of my own blood.

Then he pulled back, slightly. Our lips were still almost touching and we were both panting. "Seriously?", he breathed, almost mocking.

"Whatever", I murmured back, almost a bit shakily. He gave a short silent, throaty and almost snorting laugh before he captured my lips with his own again.

I felt his slightly cool hands sliding along the hem of my jumper, and then they trailed in under the edge. We swiftly broke off the kiss as he pulled the jumper up and over my head, and then his lips found my neck, kissing, licking, and ever so slightly biting a trail lower and lower while he softly pushed me backwards until I lay on my back with him leaning over me.


	10. Chapter 10

****soo, the crappy little writer of this work has Easter-holidays, (for one week, but still, it's something), which means that she might actually pull off some writing since she's sooner or later gonna be dying with boredom, anyhow ^_^ and this humble little dumb creature also figured out how to reply to a review (which was just so painfully easy that we'll all be real nice to her and let it pass, alrighty?)

anyhoo, enjoy reading, and leave some sweet little reviews behind, 'kaay? *_*

**~ Cherry Black - - Chapter Ten - Bruised ~**

_~ Sakura's POV ~_

I was unusually tired as I walked through the still awakening city together with the others on Friday morning. I was just dazedly, and almost continuously yawning, reflecting over the fact that this was the last day of my first week at Konoha High as we turned a corner and I all but ran into Gaara - which did pull me a bit further into the world of the living. Next to him was Naruto - who looked like he'd just walked out of Fight Club.

A big, bruised wound had bloomed out on his right cheek bone, and there was a smaller wound right above his right eyebrow. The left side of his lip looked swollen and bruised, too.

"What the hell, Naruto?", Ino gasped next to me and looked bit like she'd seen a ghost.

"_Dude_", Kiba emitted and sounded like he didn't know whether to be impressed or just freaked out. As a matter of fact, the lot of them looked worriedly surprised. Well then, at least I then could guess this wasn't something that happened on a regular basis - which in spite of all, was a relief.

Hinata, though, just gave her blond boyfriend a good morning kiss on the undamaged side of his mouth as he laid an arm around her. I assumed that he'd told her about it, because, seriously, no one is that calm.

"What happened?", Tenten asked him from underneath Neji's arm.

"Nothin' really", Naruto sounded kinda sheepish. "Just ran into a guy from East yesterday."

Kiba frowned and actually balled his fists. "Oh man, Gaara, you've so gotta beat them at the next game."

I was more than just a little confused. East? _Game_? And _beat who_! I must have looked just as clueless as I felt, because, as we kept on walking, Ino turned back to me.

"Gaara's in the Soccer team", she casually told me. That didn't help. I stared at the redhead's back in front of me and tried to visualize him chasing a ball across a field. It didn't work very well.

"The Soccer team?", I repeated, sounding a bit like someone's disturbed parrot.

"Yeah, one of the top-players, actually", she nodded.

"Sure he is." I could have bitten my tongue off, because as I said that, Gaara threw a sort of amused gaze over his shoulder. Ino, of course, didn't seem to either notice or mind.

"And their next game against East is in three weeks, I think", she cheerfully went on.

I finally got the "East" thing. "The Konoha East High, you mean?", I blurted out.

"Yep", she nodded. I nodded too, and was eager to let the subject fall. For whatever reason Naruto had been beaten blue and yellow, I was still determined to go with "what I don't know, wont hurt me".

Since it was Friday and somehow, I'd managed to fall back into the old, casual school-rhythm already, the day went slow. At lunch I still hadn't managed to wake up for real, and was more than just relieved as I found that the cafeteria sold those take-away paper-cups of coffee, that always make me think of New York and Anne Hathaway (because of iThe Devil Wears Prada/i, mostly). I then joined Hinata at our table and started to dig around in my bowl of noodles, feeling a bit more alive already.

Due to P.E., me and Hinata were a bit late to lunch, and the huge room was already a bit emptier than usual. Kankuro, Neji, Shikamaru and Temari had already left and so our table wasn't as crowded either. Kiba, Ino and Tenten were all deeply involved with figuring something out on Tenten's cell, and next to them Gaara had his eyes glued to a bunch of papers - probably some test or something -, while Naruto was sharing his lunch with Hinata; and at the same time sneaking forkfuls from Gaara's plate.

As I tried to avoid bursting into laugh at the scene, I threw a look over my shoulder and caught eye on Mitsukai and Sasuke, a few tables from us. He was reading a bunch of papers, too, while she seemed to be trying to invoke some kind of conversation.

"It's not funny", she hissed, loud enough for me to hear in the now very scarcely crowded room. "Seriously. You're being ridiculous. Why can't you just tell me?" He didn't even look up at her. "Fine, have it your way then … ass", she spat with emphasis and looked on the border of trying to strangle him out of pure annoyance, and then stood to throw the rests of her lunch in the trash.

Not wanting to look as though I was eavesdropping, I quickly returned to my own lunch. Naruto had now realized that whatever it was that Gaara was memorizing, he should have had too, and was eagerly trying to read over his friend's shoulder, while he was continuously waved away.

"Hey, uh, Naruto." We all looked up at Mitsukai who now stood behind me. "Could you please tell me what happened last night?"

The blonde looked from the coal-haired girl, to the table behind her and suddenly seemed to have forgotten all about Gaara's papers. As I followed his gaze, I saw Sasuke get up and head for the door. On his cheek and chin and across his left eye, I could now see, that a big, bruised wound had bloomed out. He didn't look at any of us.

"Okay, fine, I overreacted, I'm sorry", Naruto said curtly, stood and had soon disappeared through the doors.

Mitsukai frowned after him. "Yeah, well, that's all good and fine, but it still doesn't explain what the hell you idiots were _doing_", she said sharply. Then she turned back to us. Gaara had looked up from his papers now, I noticed. "Uh, yeah, well, see you guys at practice, I guess", she said lowly.

"See ya." It was Hinata who was the only one who seemed to have common sense to answer the phrase. Ino looked remarkably bothered, and, well, I felt like the world just had cracked to start to crumble around me. How on _earth_ could I possibly have managed to forget about the Cheerleading practice? Not that it actually concerned me - not at all as a matter of fact. Only, I felt _very_ concerned by that impending event.

I stared at my coffee-cup, suddenly feeling utterly awake, and kinda down-hearted. I wasn't hyper-sensitive or something like that. I just had my … memories.

Religion after that was slow, and English even slower. I was so mentally occupied by the cheerleading-thing that I basically didn't listen during any of the two lessons, and then I just absentmindedly told Ino to point the way to my Chemistry-class. Too late, I realized that it was my first Chemistry here, and that just pointing the way wasn't quite sufficient for someone with my orientation-skills. Or, well, anti-skills. Muttering silently, I started stomping across the school-ground towards building A.

"Hey, you know, you look kinda lost." I jumped at the rough voice behind me, and turned to gawk at no less than the drop-dead gorgeous Sasuke Uchiha. Oh my.

"I, uhm - I'm, uh-uh, not", I stuttered. His eyes seemed to sparkle slightly - yes, sparkle, like if he was actually laughing or something, only just with his eyes (which of course made no sense whatsoever).

"Really?" He arched one black eyebrow, which did not make him look any less hot at all. Depressively. There was an ever so slight mocking hint to his tone, which made my cheeks heat up slightly. He had a black guy-purse swung over his right shoulder, together with his black school-jacket and the tie was slightly loosened. The bruises were in deep contrast against his pale, flawless skin, and it all gave him a sort of half-tamed bad-boy-look.

"Huh", I muttered. "I've got Chemistry in A-14 now, that's all I know."

He gave a kind of sly, cocky smirk. "Me too."

"Really?", I repeated. Only I sounded not at all calm and cool as he - rather high-pitched and all but choking.

The cocky smirk danced across his fine face again. "Really."

He walked past me then, making it clear I was invited to come along. I hid a grimace, and then I did close up next to him - at a decent distance, though. Sure, he maybe hadn't treated me like utter, unworthy crap, but he was still, well, _him_. To me that was enough, in spite of my wish to find the class as smoothly as possible.

A thought hit me then, and made me want to run around in circles while flailing my arms around and screaming in protest. "So, uh, that Physics' project", I started, feeling almost sick. For all I knew he could easily be one of those stuck-up bad-ass guys who never do any homework at all and instead make some bullied nerd-kid do it for them.

"Yeah, right", he said, to my relief. "How about we get to that next week?" Hey, he did sound almost, well, human. Even kinda polite. Jeesh, I'm sure hell just froze over somewhere.

"Fine with me", I stuttered. "What day would, uh, work best for you then?"

"I've got Soccer Thursday, Tuesday and Saturday, so what 'bout Monday?"

I was very, _very_ close to stumbling in pure shock. Soccer? _Him_ and Soccer? The almighty stuck-up drop-dead rich guy was in the school's Soccer team? Oh _my_. "Uh, sure, sure", I spluttered and fought hard not to stare openly at him. "Monday's okay with me."

"Your place or mine?"

Oh, crap. Somehow, I'd managed to totally forget about that part. But, no - oh, no, there was no way I'd let him into my apartment. Again. Not without the Halloween-thingy. Not at all. The place must look like a junkyard compared to his, uh, living quarters. "How 'bout we say yours? Mum is working night shift so she's probably home and resting by then and, uh …" I was blabbing, I realized with agony, and shut up.

"Done, then", he said calmly.

"Huh", I emitted brilliantly.

Praise the Heavens, a now almost well-known voice saved me from any further embarrassments. "Hey there, Sakura", Mitsukai waved beside the door to A-14. I hadn't even noticed we were that close to our destination.

"Uh-huh", I said and walked over to her. "Hey." The teacher arrived then, and I hushed to her desk to get my books. As I had that done, I realized there was just one seat left unclaimed in the room, and so I made my way towards it. Mitsukai had taken the place next to Sasuke and was whispering something with him.

I had already started recognizing several faces in different classes, even though I knew few names - but before I could excite myself further over any of that, I realized that the guy next to the seat was Gaara Sabakuno. Without really knowing if that made me feel better or worse, I sunk down in the chair, murmuring a lame "Hi".


	11. Chapter 11

**~ Cherry Black - - Chapter Eleven - Guilt ~ **

_~ Mitsukai's POV ~_

I didn't know what to do of myself. Because any way I tried to look at it, I had cheated on Deidara with Sasuke. It had not been a small get-together among friends and it most certainly had not been a harmless chitchat. I knew that, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than curl up in a small lump and cry until everything bad within and around me was gone. Well, hurling myself off a roof-top might do it, too. Problem was though, there was no time for such doing. Today I had a huge cheerleading-issue to deal with and yesterday I'd had work.

And as a matter of fact, I didn't even have the guts to start crying. What if I just wouldn't be able to stop? What if I'd just keep falling into a dark abyss filled with hurt and despair? No, I couldn't handle that.

So I went on. I didn't think about the night with Sasuke at all, almost hoping it might disappear if I forgot about it. I knew it wouldn't, of course, but it felt a bit better believing. Being pissed at Sasuke and Naruto for getting into trouble, worked too, I soon realized, and started annoying him about it.

I was so engrossed about both Sasuke's face and the cheerleading thing that I barely noticed the day passing by around me (sometime after lunch, the latter took over as I realized there wasn't much time left, and wanted to turn me into a shuddering, stuttering, nervous wreck.)

I had Chemistry last, and as I stood waiting outside the door with a group of other kids, I caught eye of Sakura. Heaven knows why, she was walking towards us next to Sasuke himself. Well, that was just plain odd. Sasuke wasn't exactly the guy who hangs around with new kids on a whim.

I waved a greeting to the rosette, but as she'd reached me, the teacher appeared and the entire group kinda sucked itself through the doorway. I sunk down next to Sasuke, and couldn't keep myself.

"What was that all about?", I murmured.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Physics", he simply stated.

Oh, right. I felt almost embarrassed. "Yeah, right, you got paired up. Huh-uh."

"You know you're acting kinda weird today", he said then. It wasn't in a concerned kinda way, just a statement of the obvious.

I just looked at him blankly until he turned to face the board again. Suddenly I wished I'd saved the seat next to mine for Sakura. I mean, I still barely knew the girl, but she was good talking to. Not that I'd tell her about what had happened between me and her esteemed lab-partner. She'd think I was the biggest slut ever. Not without reason.

We were sitting in the row second from the back of the room, and Gaara was seated behind us. Where the monumental example of a jerk, who was his usual partner, had disappeared, I did not know, but Sakura let herself down on the empty seat next to him - though she gave him and the class a slightly suspicious look.

To my great relief, we were ordered to simply work with problems to the chapter "Acids and Alkaline Solutions". It left me plenty of time to upset myself over the cheerleading-catastrophe that was gonna happen in less than two hours.

"Hey, Mitsukai", Sakura said as she closed up next to me walking out of the room. "You know, you look kinda, like, uh …"

"Crap?", I grinned, a bit humorlessly.

"I was gonna say like something happened, but if you say so …", she laughed a bit.

"Yea, I kinda had a fight with Dei", I let up. It was not a lie. It just was as much of the truth I dared to tell her.

"Oh, about the college-thing?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Well, we cleared it up, eventually, but, yeah, well …" She nodded, knowingly. "Hey, you coming to watch later?", I then said, to change the subject. Not that it was a subject I loved that much more.

She hesitated and looked remarkably bothered. "I, uh, dunno. Haven't decided yet", she then smiled.

"Oh, okay", I said. How come I suddenly wasn't the only one who had a problem with cheerleading? How uncanny. But, on the other hand, her problem surely did not have same reason as mine. (Because the name of mine was, of course, Ino, and those two seemed to becoming all but inseparable, at least as far I could tell.)

"Your Ma doesn't like cheerleading?", I tried, curious.

"Yes. No. It's complicated", she frowned but then smiled. Uh-huh. That was unusual. Most mums would all but get a happy freak-out about a daughter in the cheerleading team, wouldn't they?

"It's okay", I said and smiled back. I was more than willing to reply the talking-to-a-girl-favor she'd done me, but if she didn't need or want it, I was cool with that too. It wasn't like I had a lack of problems on my own.

We'd reached building D now, and as soon as we entered, Ino called and waved to the pink-hairy from their group hanging around their lockers. Sakura waved a small goodbye to me and disappeared around a chatting group of younger students. I shortly dug around in my own locker - which was on the other side of the corridor - and then spotted Sasuke at our bench across the yard.

"Does it at least hurt?", I greeted him grumpily after I'd sat down across him.

"Hn." He returned to a his work with a small spray-bottle and a piece of the wall to our right.

I started digging around in my bag and found the Milkshake I'd picked up this morning, unwilling to walk all the way home to eat and then come back. Furthermore, I'd been kinda suspecting that if I once was safe home, I might "forget" about the cheerleading, which would eventually turn into an ugly issue.

"Did you have it looked at?", I asked him in order to keep my thoughts from the blue-black Uniform in the bottom of my bag.

"Hn."

I rolled my eyes. Arrogant, stubborn jerk. "Here", I said, and he actually looked up and tilted his head slightly to let me reach out and softly touch the bruised area around his high cheekbone. It wasn't the first one of these wounds I'd encountered, so I knew there was only reason for throwing a fit if it was hot and feverish - which it wasn't. Our eyes met then, just for a moment, and my heart squeezed painfully.

Quickly, I let him go and returned to my Milkshake. "So what'd you do, because you wont tell me?", I said, without really looking at him. "Rob a bank?"

He didn't reply and I frowned at the groups of students that were leaving the school. Suddenly, I saw a well-known wave of long, bluish blackness; Hinata was crossing between the groups, alone.

Quickly, I got up and hurried towards her. "Hey, Hinata", I called as I closed up on her, and she turned to look at me questioningly. "Sorry, I just … I know, it's none of my business, but you know what happened last night, don't you?" She nodded slowly. "Would you tell me?"

She hesitated briefly, and I could swear she sent a tiny, short glance over her shoulder. The two of us had never really had any, well, personal issues. But she was Ino's BFF, and all that.

"Naruto was in this shop yesterday, CD's, downtown, 'round the 74th", she then started, and I nodded. I wasn't exactly sure which one she meant, but I knew the area. "Well, as soon as he'd left, the cops flew on him."

"He snatched?", I guessed. Yeah, I've gotta admit it. Stuff like that isn't really a big deal for me, or a bunch of the kids around here.

"No, he didn't", she replied and shook her head. "Someone must have given them an empty hint, or they were just suspicious"

I frowned. "And he thought it was Sasuke, so on his way home he stopped at the Uchiha's to say thanks?", I sounded sharper than I'd planned, and added a quick, low "sorry". I knew myself the idea was just stupid.

Hinata stayed calm, though. "Quite the opposite, really", she replied. "Sasuke passed and said he'd vouch for Naruto, so they let him go."

I blinked. Of course they did. The kid is son of the richest man in town, after all. "But why the, uh, violence?"

She frowned, but gave a small, almost apologetic smile. "Uh, Naruto was in a kinda bad mood … well, you know how he can be", she ended, her smile turning a bit crocked.

I had to smile back, knowingly. "Yeah." Naruto was a good guy, but when it came to Sasuke he'd occasionally turn into a pure maniac. Hell, even I'd be pissed in that kind of situation. Pissed because the guy hurt my pride, mainly - but still pissed. "Well, thanks for telling me", I ended. "I wont tell it 'round."

She nodded and smiled a good-bye, and I returned to Sasuke, who looked at me with a kind of mocking expression. "Satisfied?"

"I'm not gonna comment that", I replied coolly. I do not like I-told-you-so-tones. Especially not from him.

"So you're not gonna tell me I shouldn't have punched back?"

It was a weird comment coming from him, even if he was celebrating his right in the whole thing. But I had other things to worry about at the moment. "I would if I'd be suffering the imagination that it might actually help", I just said, as crushing as possible.

He smirked, which did not help my mood, and I was muttering inaudibly as I busied myself with my Shake again.


	12. Chapter 12

**~ Cherry Black - - Chapter Twelve - Bad Feelings ~**

_~ Mitsukai's POV ~_

4:17, I was all but bouncing in nervousness - to Sasuke's quiet but depressively obvious amusement.

"Why are you doing this?", he asked around a cigarette as I glanced at the clock for the thousandth time. His cigarette wasn't helping me, either. There wasn't a living soul to be seen around anymore, but I just didn't have the guts. He was the richest kid in town, so he might talk himself out of it if a teacher caught him, but I was just any other student, and I didn't need Deidara's mother to deal with a letter about me smoking on no-smoking school grounds.

"It's called responsibility", I growled.

"Hn." I spared him a glare and started drumming my nails against the picnic-table. Internally, I hissing asked myself why on earth I was putting myself through this. And the fact that no one else understood why, either - not Sasuke, not Konan, not Deidara, not even Gaara - just made it more horrible. Probably not even Ino, at second thought.

This was ridiculous, I concluded with a start and got up.

"See ya", Sasuke emitted, but the only thing I managed to press past my tense lips was a curt "Hn". Slowly, I walked around building E, and made my way to the locker rooms next to the sport halls. I leaned against the wall next to the door to the girls', and started drumming with my right foot, impatiently.

Ino came trotting around the corner 4:27, talking vividly into her cell. I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes in annoyance - even though I wasn't quite sure why. "Yes, mother, I realize that", she said as she started digging around in her bag after the keys. "No, Kiba wasn't involved. He wasn't even there. How I can be sure? I was with him, don't you remember?"

I swallowed a very foul, mean giggle. Aaw, the fine lady was worrying about her daughters reputation? Once again, that is. What a shame. For Ino. Yes, I was being a bitch. But hey, she hadn't exactly treated me like gold either, had she?

Ino found the right keys, muttered an obviously strained good-bye to her mother, and unlocked the door. While I tried to keep my amusement off the surface, I followed her into the locker room. I let my bag fall kinda noisily on the ground next to an empty locker and we changed in silence.

"Okay, what do you need me to do?", I asked as I was done stuffing my bag into the locker. Even I could hear the slightly patronizing tone in my voice, but there just wasn't anything I could to do help myself.

"There's, uh", she said, flailing again, "get the water bottles in the refrigerator."

I managed to keep my eyebrows from jumping up halfway up to my hair, and just turned towards the office-room next-door.

"Uh, hold on", her voice drifted towards me as I'd barely opened the door. "They're in the cabinet in the cupboard. Put them into the refrigerator. Then go get the coolers."

I rolled my eyes as I turned towards the cupboard. Yes, Ino, iI/i know that. I did this for several months, remember? I denied myself the relief of muttering out loud as I did as she'd said, and then made myself on the way back to the locker room. I knew I was supposed to prepare the music now, but I wasn't going easy on her. In the door, I stopped, though.

Ino was sitting on the bench in the middle of the room. She held a paper in her lap - probably a new routine -, but she was staring out in the thin air in front of her. She wasn't crying, but it was obvious that she was close. I hesitated, suddenly feeling not meanly amused but rather incredibly sorry for her.

I hadn't realized the inappropriate-boyfriend-and-friends-issue still was an issue. I knew about it because I'd been able to watch it be born firsthand, before things got, well, screwed up between the two of us. I guess, Ino was just like any other girl, after all. Boyfriend-issues, friend-issues, parents-issues; yeah, I, too, knew about them.

"Is the stereo still in the cabinet in the office?", I asked, kinda softly. She jumped, and looked up at me.

"Uhm, yeah, it is", she mumbled. "Here's the key", she reached it to me, and I took it, together with the CD she hurried to dig out in her bag.

I turned without looking at her and made my way towards the arena. For some reason, I felt horrible. I might have been looking at myself as the responsible one in this mess, but I know realized I'd been acting like an utter bitch. Maybe I hadn't been openly hostile towards her, but still … after all, the whole mess had mainly been my fault from the start.

I frowned at the empty field in front of me. But on the other hand, what could I do about it? Give her a big ol' hug and tell her everything was gonna be all fine? - and then we'd be BFFs for the rest of our lives. Nuh-uh. In spite of all, I kinda like living and breathing, thank you very much.

As I returned to the locker room, Ino had gathered herself again and the room was filled with chatting girls and swirling pom-poms. Ino whistled to get the attention of the group and we all started moving towards the field. Arrived there, I saw the usual small array of spectators had arrived. At least half of them were Tenten, Kiba, Naruto, Sakura and - I was close to fall down the stairs in pure shock - Gaara Sabakuno.

Muttering inaudibly, I marched after the chattering group. Oh, yeah. Yeah, great. _Him_ was just what I needed now. Since when the hell did Gaara come watch cheerleading practice, anyway?

Ino announced she'd prepared a new routine, so at least I wasn't the only one who was clueless. The blonde kept the quick tempo I remembered, but though I was more than just a little busy, it still felt like ages until she finally clapped her hands together. "Okay, good work, now off to the showers, ladies."

I dragged my feet to the locker room, showered in silence, dressed and then ended my Managing-duties before Ino had had the nerve to even tell me what to do. She might even have seemed a tiny bit impressed as she handed me the keys and disappeared. I followed her, still dragging my feet.

As I was fighting with the lock, a rough yet somehow smooth, and very well-known voice called my name, and I spun around. As I'd been knowing, Gaara stood leaned against the wall of building E.

"Hey", I muttered, and could tell myself that I sounded as if someone had died. "What's up, Gaara?" I tried again as I came closer, but didn't manage to sound that much more normal.

"You okay?", he closed up next to me as I started walking towards the school-gates.

I wanted so much to throw myself into his arms and cry "no, hell no! I've just cheated on my boyfriend with my only real friend and from now on I've gotta put up with this cheerleading-crap twice a week!" I didn't, of course. I just pressed a bleak smile onto my lips. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Sure?"

Uh-uh. I actually stopped and looked up at him, helpless. He gave me a questioning look, and I caught a grip of myself again. "Sure", I muttered. "Too busy for a mental breakdown", I added, lower.

He actually gave me one of those fascinating half-smiles. And it was the weirdest thing. I felt kinda better. Not much, but a tiny, tiny hint better. "How 'bout some homework, got time for that?"

I smiled slightly back. "I'll see what I can do. Soccer's Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, right?"

He nodded. "Yea. What 'bout Sunday?"

Somehow, it made me feel oddly comfortable that he didn't seem to care to keep our project on schooldays. "Yeah, let's say … 'round 4 AM?"

He nodded his agreement. "Your place or mine?"

I hesitated, feeling bad again. On the one hand, Deidara tended to appear at my place every now and then. And say he'd run into the room where I and Gaara sat chatting about Physics … well, let's just say we all would be better off without that happening. But at Gaara's place … Feeling like an utter bitch, I shoved away the bad feelings. "Yours?", I suggested carefully.

Gaara looked unmoved, though. "Sure."

I nodded, and gave a small smile. "Okay, well, see ya Sunday, then."

He looked down at me. "Take care", he replied lowly. I felt my own eyes widen slightly, and before I could help myself, I'd slid closer to him into a small half-hug.

"Hey, Mitsukai!" I jumped slightly and quickly stepped away from the redhead. I could easily recognize the person that had just rounded the next corner, waving.

"… Bye", I muttered to Gaara and then started walking towards Deidara, who soon pulled me into a hug.

"What was that, hm?", he asked.

"Gaara", I coolly stated, hugging him back.

"I know that, yeah. What where you guys talking 'bout?"

I felt myself kinda tripping internally. There was a sharp, uncomfortable edge to his usually soft voice. Oh, god. I do not need this now. Not at all.

"Homework", I replied, locking our gazes firmly together. Right now, I didn't give a shit that Deidara actually had all reason to be possessive with me; considered what had happened at Sasuke's two nights ago. I did not like possessive guys, and I wasn't gonna have it this way, either. No way. Especially since he had no reason whatsoever to be jealous of Gaara. Again, I felt that horrible sore urge to just burst into tears.

"Physics. We got paired up."

"Mhm-hm. And when?", he sounded even slightly colder.

"Sunday, at his place. C'mon Dei, don't go there, please. I'm with you now, okay? Please, let it go." I could tell myself that my voice sounded broke and rough. And it didn't make me feel much better knowing that it had nothing to do with the fact that this guy tought I might be cheating on him. God, I was turning into such an awful bitch.

"Yea, fine." His voice turned the same old again and he smiled a bit, hugging me closer to give me a soft kiss. "Hey, Kisame's throwing a party tonight", he then told me, so cheerful you might think nothing just happened. "Gonna be kinda huge."

"Kisame? Itachi's buddy?", I asked, frowning up at him, still in his arms. He nodded. "I don't know, Dei, I don't really feel like partying."

"C'mon, babe", he murmured, lowly, making it sound a bit like a purr, while he leaned closer to me. "Free wine? It's been a while, yeah."

That was true. And, on second thought … Forgetting all the bullshit that had been going on lately, and some really wasted making-out with Deidara … Uh, I might live through it. Might. After all, Deidara wasn't one of the most wanted guys in school for nothing. And I definitely needed some getting my mind off things.

"Yeah, okay, I'm in."

"Good girl, yeah", he replied and caught my lips with his own. I allowed myself to let go and just enjoy him. Because, who knew, maybe it would last that much longer.


End file.
